Welcome to the South Asian Literary Association

The South Asian Literary Association, or SALA, promotes knowledge of, and scholarly interest in, the languages, cultures, and literatures of South Asia and the South Asian diaspora.

Membership in the Association is open to all individuals and libraries, institutions, and organizations interested in South Asian literature, culture, languages, and philosophy, as well as in comparative studies.

SALA is an Allied Organization of the Modern Language Association, and holds its annual meeting concurrently at the MLA Convention host city.

SALA Endorsement of MLA Statement on Violence against Students and Teachers in India
As an allied organization of the MLA, the South Asian Literary Association supports the MLA Statement on Violence against Students and Teachers, released on 27 January 2020. We stand in solidarity with students and colleagues at Indian universities and condemn the ongoing violence in India and the repression of academic freedom. The MLA statement can be found here: https://www.mla.org/About-Us/Governance/Executive-Council/Executive-Council-Actions/2020/Statement-on-Violence-against-Students-and-Teachers-in-India

Statement from the SALA Executive Committee
The South Asian Literary Association (SALA) was founded in the early 1970s to promote the knowledge of South Asia in the academy by bringing together interested faculty and students from around the globe to its annual conferences in the United States.  Although the cultures of the seven nations named in the recent executive order do not fall within the purview of our organization, we stand in solidarity with them against the arbitrary nature of this mandated alienation from the historic and core principles of welcome at the heart of the American constitution.  We urge the government and judiciary of the United States to reconsider this troubling directive.  We must, instead, pursue a path of reasoned, thoughtful, and humane immigration guided by the best principles upon which our country was founded.