Conference: Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies, "Boundary, Barrier and Border Crossing"

[administrator]

Association for Slavic, East European,

and Eurasian Studies

(formerly the American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies)

2012 Convention in New Orleans, LA

The 43rd Annual Convention of the Association will be held in New Orleans, LA, from Thursday, November 15, to Sunday, November 18, 2012 at theNew Orleans Marriott. The theme of the 2012 convention is "Boundary, Barrier and Border Crossing" (see below for more information).

Proposal Deadline and Submission

The deadline to submit proposals for panels, roundtables and meetings is January 15, 2012.

Individual paper submissions must be received by 5PM EST on December 16, 2011.

Click here for the call for proposals and instructions (PDF).

Online Submission will be available starting November 22 (You will be required to log in to the ASEEES members site first).

Paper submission: You can submit a hard copy of your proposal:

·

Panels:

Panels entail presentation of prepared papers (distributed in advance to a discussant) on a related topic or theme, followed by structured discussion of those papers. A panel must have a Chair, no more than three paper presentations, and at least one, but no more than two, Discussants.

A complete panel proposal must include

all of

the following:

Proposal Form A: Basic Information

Proposal Form B: Supporting Information

Proposal Form C: CV Information

·

Roundtables:

Roundtables entail structured discussion of a topic/theme, without the presentation of papers. Proposals for roundtables should be submitted

only

when the topic clearly justifies this format. A roundtable must have a Chair and three to five other participants.

A complete roundtable proposal must include

all of

the following:

Proposal Form A: Basic Information

Proposal Form B: Supporting Information

Proposal Form C: CV Information

·

Individual Papers:

The Program Committee will

consider

proposals for individual papers that are not associated with a panel. The Program Committee strongly urges all scholars to use the ASEEES

website

,

Facebook page

, and

LinkedIn group

, the

H-Russia

mailing list, and other means of networking to form a full panel rather than submit an individual paper proposal.

Do not

submit an individual paper proposal for a paper that is already part of an organized panel, and do not submit a proposal if you are presenting any paper on any other proposed panel.

A conference participant can present only one paper at the conference, and can appear on the program no more than twice.

For your individual paper proposal to be considered, you must complete both pages of the

Individual Paper Proposal Form

and submit it to the address given. All individuals submitting paper proposals

must

be members of ASEEES, unless outside the field of Slavic, East European, and/or Eurasian Studies or working outside the United States.

Paper proposals will be screened by the Program Committee. Proposals that are approved will be formed into panels if possible.

A paper will be accepted for the conference only if it can be fit into a coherent panel,

and if

that panel is then approved by the Program Committee.

In addition, space constraints may preclude our being able to accommodate all individual papers proposed.

Special deadline for individual paper proposal submissions

: All individual paper submissions must be

received

by 5 p.m. US Eastern Time on

December 16, 2012

.

·

Meeting Rooms:

Each affiliate organization may request one meeting space during the convention using this form:

Meeting Room Request Form

Rules for Convention Participants

All participants who are Slavic, East European, and Eurasian studies scholars living in the U.S. must be current ASEEES members. Only foreign scholars and scholars outside the field of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian studies do not need to join ASEEES. If you are not currently a member or have not renewed your membership for the 2012 calendar year, you must do so in order to attend the convention. (Learn more about membership in ASEEES)

All participants on panels/roundtables, members and non-members, must preregister by the deadline and pay the registration fee. See Convention Registration for more information.

If you agree to participate in the ASEEES Convention, you are agreeing to be scheduled during any of the planned sessions. We will honor specific scheduling requests only for religious reasons.

A complete panel has: one Chair; 3 papers (NO MORE than 3); and at least one discussant, with a maximum of 2.

Roundtables must have: a Chair; and minimum of 3 to maximum of 5 partipants.

A complete set of CVs must accompany all proposals.

You may organize as many panels or roundtables as you wish and you may give a paper on one panel and be the chair, or a discussant, or a participant on one other, but you cannot be chair and discussant or chair and give a paper on the same panel, and you CAN NOT sign up for more than two panels/roundtables. Each participant can present only one paper during the convention.

Affiliate organizations of the ASEEES are each allowed one panel or roundtable, which must be specified on the proposal form. Each affiliate-sponsored panel/roundtable will be screened in the usual manner by the Program Committee; we will not accept unscreened proposals.

Audio Visual Equipment Request Deadline is JULY 1, 2012 for the November convention. Please note that we do not pay for powerpoint/LCD equipment - it is too expensive to rent. We will pay for up to $150 worth of equipment. If you do not book your equipment by July 1, you must contact the hotel's audio visual department to arrange for equipment rental and pay for it yourself.

2012 Convention Theme

Our theme of the 2012 convention is: "Boundary, Barrier and Border Crossing"

For most of us, the value of ASEEES in our professional lives stems from its interdisciplinarity. We might also be a member of AHA or APA or AAR or AFS or APSA or APS or MLA or ASA or AAA or any number of other alphabetical permutations. But we belong to ASEEES precisely because it pulls us out of our disciplinary silos, provides us with new perspectives on shared interests, and therefore shows us our work in a wholly new light. The 2012 convention theme of "Boundary, Barrier, and Border Crossings" encourages us to confront the space between the disciplines at the same time as it allows us to contemplate the meaning of boundaries within our own areas of expertise.

Such a confrontation is particularly timely for at least two reasons. Now, as the post-communist world has entered its third decade, we need to take stock of shifting borders, both geographic and cultural. We might consider how the various areas in our Slavic, East European and Eurasian worlds interact -- or don't -- with each other. And how does "our" world fit in with other areas, whether Western Europe, East and South Asia, Africa, the Middle East, and, yes, the United States. As we look at the space that has indeed been crossed, we will also notice how many boundaries remain intact, or how new barriers have grown up/been erected. Or we might think of the theme temporally as well as spatially. How have we weathered this giant step into the 21st century? What might a glance at the changing calendar open up to us about other turns of centuries, other shifts of regime, other developments of new or repackaged cultural productions? How about genre crossings? Or on a more theoretical path, how are "crossings" both like and unlike "transgressions"-"breaches"- "blendings"- "interpolations"- "interpenetrations"- Not to mention clashes and "antagonisms and irreconcilable differences"-

The second timely reason to address the issue of boundary crossing is, alas, financial: it relates to the very future of our organization and the "interdisciplinary discipline" that it represents. With resources tight and priorities elsewhere, now, more than ever, we must be prepared to articulate what makes us, and the ways in which we help understand the world, vital. I know how important it has been for me to move from a panel on religion to one on history to another on literature at an ASEEES ("formerly known as AAASS") convention. However, I need to be able to explain to others how the intellectual leap across time, space, methodology, not to mention topic enriches not only me, but my students, my readers, my colleagues, and my fellow citizens. If interdisciplinarity makes ASEEES special, how does that specialness manifest itself? This is a good time to take a look at ourselves and beyond. What about area studies in general? What does focus on the interstices and crossovers between disciplinary areas within a geographic area -- or the examination of geographic, political, economic, cultural areas within a single discipline -- bring us? Clearly a lot, or we wouldn't be members of ASEEES.

Although panel proposals need not be restricted to this topic, let us take the occasion of the 2012 ASEEES convention to focus even more sharply and to articulate even more clearly the issues surrounding and bridging barriers, boundaries, and borders of all sorts.