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The 2012 Modern Language Association (MLA) meeting played host to a compelling examination of how to best advocate for the humanities during the Delegate Assembly Organizing Committee's annual roundtable session.  This year's dynamic discussion gathered a diverse set of "humanists" to reflect on the ways previous advocacy efforts had failed and to suggest more effective strategies from their institutionally diverse points of view.

Session organizer of the Obermann Center for Advanced Studies, and panelists Barbara McFadden Allen of the CIC, of the University of Washington Bothell, of the University of Washington Bothell, Esther Mackintosh of the , and Scott Jaschik from  all shared a similar call for humanists to educate themselves about their distinctive audiences.  As session organizer Mangum notes in the introduction to the roundtable's report: "Several of the panelists also posed a steely-eyed challenge, urging scholars to examine what the academic humanities have become and to consider how we might rethink our practices if we hope to have a fan base in the twenty-first century."

For more on this thought-provoking discussion, please see the full report Making a Case for the Humanities: Advocacy and Audience.