UB's Feal Named Executive Director of MLA

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- After a nationwide search, the Modern Language Association (MLA) has appointed Rosemary Feal of Clarence, professor of Spanish and chair of the Department of Modern Languages and Literatures in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo, to succeed Phyllis Franklin as executive director of the association.

The MLA, founded in 1883, has 30,000 members in 100 nations and fosters scholarship and teaching in modern languages and literatures, folklore and linguistics.

It is among the most eminent and well-known scholarly societies in the world, and supports one of the most distinguished publishing programs in the humanities.

Feal, who joined the UB faculty in 1999, will take a leave from her current position and assume the executive directorship this summer when Phyllis Franklin retires. Franklin has served as MLA executive director since 1985.

Sylvia Molloy, MLA president and chair of the search committee, said Feal "brings a long association with the MLA, a commanding knowledge of modern languages and literatures and significant experience as an engaged graduate student, a professor and an administrator to the position.

"She is highly qualified to continue the tradition of strong leadership that has proved so important to the association."

Feal's active involvement with the MLA began in 1988, when she was appointed to the association's delegate assembly. She later was elected to several other positions, most recently to chair the association's Committee on the Status of Women in the Profession.

She is senior consulting editor of the Latin American Literary Review and associate editor of the Afro-Hispanic Review and serves on the editorial boards of Latino Cultural Studies, New Centennial Review, and Letras Femenina.

She co-edits the SUNY Press Series in Latin American and Iberian Thought and Culture and serves on the executive committee of UB's Institute for Research and Education on Women and Gender.

A graduate of Allegheny College, Feal holds graduate degrees from the University at Buffalo and previously taught at the University of Rochester.

She has served on a wide range of professional committees and published widely in Latin American literature, including two books, "Novel Lives: The Fictional Autobiographies of Guillermo Cabrera Infante and Mario Vargas Llosa" and "Painting on the Page: Interartistic Approaches to Modern Hispanic Texts," which she co-authored with Carlos Feal.