Modern Language Studies (MLS) serves the membership of the Northeast Modern Language Association by providing a forum that invites a wide range of interests from those who teach and do research in all areas of British, American, and comparative literatures, and the literatures of the modern languages. The journal is divided into three sections: articles, profession and pedagogy, and reviews. For the first section MLS also invites submissions of annotated and critically contextualized documents such as letters, unusual primary materials, etc. Reviews should be of significant, intriguing, or unusual primary materials.

Modern Language Studies is a publication of the Northeast Modern Language Association. NEMLA is a scholarly organization for professionals in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, and other modern languages. The group was founded as the New York-Pennsylvania MLA in 1967 by William Wehmeyer of St. Bonaventure University and other MLA members interested in continuing scholarly discourse at annual conventions smaller than that hosted by the Modern Language Association. In 1969, the organization moved to wider regional membership, election of officers, formal affiliation with MLA, and adoption of its present name.