COMMUNAL STUDIES ASSOCIATION Annual Conference: Hancock Shaker Village-Pittsfield, Massachusetts, September30 - October 2, 2004. CALL FOR PAPERS: Proposals for papers, panels and roundtable sessions are welcome. The conference theme, “Travels & Journeys,” offers many possibilities for paper topics such as exploring an individual’s personal or spiritual journey within a communal group, literal journeys between groups, a communal group’s journey (to find a site, to move somewhere else), journey as change over time of a group’s philosophies, lifeways, or policies, and the like. In addition to papers that address the conference theme, papers and panels are welcome on any aspect of communal studies including architecture, art, material culture, literature, teaching communal studies, contemporary communalism & communities, and resources for the study of communal groups.

The Program Committee invites proposals for sessions and individual papers on topics concerning all aspects of communal studies from any disciplinary perspective. Participation by undergraduate students, independent researchers, and members of current communities is welcome and encouraged.

Please send proposals by April 1, 2004, to the address given below.

Founded in 1975 as the National Historic Communal Studies Association, the mission of the CSA is to provide a forum for the study of communal societies past and present; to encourage and facilitate the preservation, restoration, and public interpretation of America’s historic communal sites; and to communicate to the general public the successful ideas from, and lessons learned by, communal societies. For more information on the CSA see our website.