About Membership
As a member you’ll receive five issues of PMLA, discounted registration for the MLA Annual Convention, and more. View a full list of membership benefits.
What Your Dues Support
Members’ support enables the association to undertake projects, like the MLA Language Map, that serve the broader public and to advocate for members of the profession. Your dues allow the MLA to open special convention events to the public and sustain the association’s distinguished scholarly communication and publishing programs, including MLA Commons, the online publication platform and member-to-member network; the Texts and Translations series, which produces otherwise unavailable works in affordable editions for classroom use; the MLA International Bibliography; and the association’s flagship journal, PMLA.
Membership Categories
Graduate students engaged in courses of study leading to degrees in the fields of modern languages and literatures may for a maximum of seven years become student members at a $31 annual dues rate. Undergraduates are not eligible for the student dues rate.
Group memberships for graduate students are available. Departments can purchase memberships for groups of graduate students based on the following tiers:
5–10 memberships (10% off regular graduate student rates)
11–20 memberships (15% off regular graduate student rates)
21 or more memberships (20% off regular graduate student rates)
Lock in at this year’s rates by purchasing up to three years of membership for your students. Learn more about how to purchase group memberships.
Joint membership is open to two individuals sharing the same household. Joint members receive two subscriptions to the Newsletter and the Program issue of PMLA and one subscription to all other issues of PMLA. To determine the joint-membership dues payment, add $58 to the dues category of the member with the higher income. This category is not open to student members.
Life membership is available to retired members of more than thirty years’ standing and to all members who have paid membership dues for fifty years. Members may also become life members by making a single payment of $5,000 less $1,000 for each decade of membership. Life members pay no further dues to the association.
Regular members, including new and reinstating members, should establish their dues category according to the graduated schedule.
Departments may purchase group memberships for part-time faculty members and receive a discount of up to 20% off the regular rates.
Membership Dues Schedule
Code | Income | Dues |
B | Employed Less Than Full-Time | $31 |
E | Graduate Student | $31 |
L | Joint Secondary | $58 |
1 | up to $30,000 | $58 |
2 | $30,000–$50,000 | $93 |
3 | $50,000–$70,000 | $139 |
4 | $70,000–$100,000 | $186 |
5 | $100,000–$140,000 | $232 |
6 | $140,000–$180,000 | $291 |
7 | $180,000–$220,000 | $349 |
8 | over $220,000 | $406 |
MLA Forums
The membership of the association is organized into forums, each representing an area of scholarly and professional concern. To participate fully in the activities of the association, members should join the forums in which they have major scholarly or professional interests. Members may choose up to five primary forum affiliations. A primary forum affiliation entitles a member to receive all mailings initiated by the forum and to vote in forum executive committee elections and forum delegate elections. MLA members also have the option of participating in as many forum groups on MLA Commons as they wish; however, joining or leaving a Commons group does not affect primary affiliation selections. Members can select primary forums in My MLA between 15 December and 15 October. An affiliation with one forum or membership in its Commons group does not exclude a member from attending any or all meetings arranged by other forums at a convention or from participating in special sessions.
MLA Commons
The MLA invites members to participate in MLA Commons, the online scholarly communication platform where members can connect with fellow members, collaborate on convention sessions, share research, and explore new modes of scholarship. Although many areas of the site are open to the public, full participation, including the ability to create a blog and to participate in division and discussion group forums, is a benefit of membership.
Email Policy
In May 2000 the Executive Council approved the limited use of electronic lists of members' email addresses by forums (formerly called divisions and discussion groups), allied organizations, and MLA committees if members authorize the release of their email addresses.
Once a year, forum group executive committees, officers of allied organizations, and chairs of MLA committees can request an electronic list of the email addresses of an appropriate group of MLA members. The electronic lists may be used several times during the year, as long as the messages sent are in keeping with the MLA's status as a 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization and, for MLA forums and committees, as long as the messages sent are in keeping with the MLA's purposes.
If you would like to opt out of MLA mailings or change your privacy settings, please visit My MLA. Read the privacy policy for MLA websites.
Tax Deductibility
To comply with the United States Internal Revenue Code, the amount of dues paid in excess of $31 is tax-deductible as a charitable contribution.
To comply with postal regulations governing periodicals-class mail, the MLA calculates the cost of a Newsletter subscription at $8.00, which is included in membership dues.
Refund Policy
Membership cancellation requests must be made within thirty days of receipt of payment. Please contact the membership office (646 576-5154; membership@mla.org).