Call for Papers:
110th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association,
Montreal, Quebec
November 16-20, 2011
Dear Colleagues,
We want to do our part to make the 2011 American Anthropological Association meeting in Montreal as successful and as interesting as possible.
We write as the the Society for the Anthropology of Europe Program Chair and Program Chair-Elect (a.k.a. section editors) for the AAA Annual Meetings. As such, we want to provide you with additional guidance on the processes of invited sessions and co-sponsorship of those sessions.
Each section is allotted a specific amount of "invited session" time during the Annual Meetings each year. While we don’t have the final numbers yet for this year, in the past, based on our membership, our Society has been allotted 3.75 hours (225 minutes) of invited session time. While invited status time slots are a finite resource at the meetings, one way for our section to leverage more of our members' scholarship into the general program is to develop invited sessions that other sections can co-sponsor. This strategy reduces the per-panel expenditure of our invited session allotment and allows us to basically (co)invite more panels. Securing co-sponsorships also increases the visibility of SAE and ensures higher attendance at our co-sponsored invited sessions.
The timing and mechanics of submitting for invited status have changed slightly this year. Panels will be submitted directly to the AAA meeting website and the deadline is March 15 (the website will be open for submission beginning March 1). All panels submitted for invited status by March 15 will be reviewed and ranked by a committee including both of us and a few additional hands (if you are interested in serving in this capacity, please get in touch with us ASAP). Notifications will be made by April 4, and all volunteered sessions (including those not accepted for invited status, which will automatically be rolled over into volunteered session submissions) will be due April 15th this year. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions about your proposal, but please remember: all submission must be to the AAA website – if you just send them to us, then they are not officially submitted.
FYI: other deadlines for the coming months are located in the right column of this page: http://www.aaanet.org/meetings/Call-for-Papers.cfm.
The invited session proposal requires a complete list of presenters and a panel abstract (500 words). Ideally, each presenter will also submit his or her abstract as well (250 words). We encourage you to indicate one or two potential co-sponsoring sections, if you have one(s) in mind. We have included a list of AAA sections below.
Depending on how many invited sessions are proposed, we may likely not be able to grant invited status to all of them. We realize March 15 may seem very soon. There are advantages, though, for getting your proposals organized sooner rather than later: organizers get a head start on putting together, developing and refining proposals in time for the inflexible, AAA submission deadline of April 15, 5 p.m. As section editors, we have to rank all panels and papers. The AAA leadership always anticipates more panels and papers than it can accommodate.
In addition, we strongly encourage those who are looking for like-minded researchers to use the SAE list-serve to pitch panel ideas. We'd love to see a flurry of activity to that end--whether for invited or regular panels.
A note on format: On behalf of the AAA Program Committee, we encourage you to experiment with the structure of your sessions in any way that you think will improve them. AAA surveys show that the membership is always interested in more time for discussion. For example, you can schedule 3 papers/1 discussant, 3 papers/3 discussants, or simply allow more time for discussion. (See rules below.) We will consider using one of our invited session slots for an alternative format. Last year, for example, we had great success with the innovative structure of our student paper competition panel, which included brief summaries of work and then extended discussion time, with 2 officially designated discussants.
A few other answers to frequently asked questions about aaa submission in general:
1) There are only two lengths for sessions: 1.75 hours and 3.75 hours. All of the time slots within these sessions should be scheduled, although some can be labeled for discussion rather than papers each time slot is 15 minutes long. Be sure to schedule a break in the 3.75 hour sessions. Old programs are a good resource; potential organizers can look back at sessions they liked from previous years to see how the presentations and discussions were slotted.
2) The AAA adheres to a very strict "one paper/one other role" rule. A person can give one paper and be a discussant or be a chair. Organizer/chair counts as one role in the same session.
No exceptions; one paper plus one other role. Participation in special events like chairing a business meeting or leading a workshop are not included in this calculation.
3) The organizer of a volunteered session MUST be clear in directing the session to a particular section for review, and the same goes for authors of volunteered papers. This matters--the directions will be followed. If session organizers or authors are in doubt as to where their proposals will be best received, please contact all of the relevant section program editors for preliminary assessments before completing your submission. More work up front means less disappointment and a better overall program. It is also very important to take the question about "estimated size of audience" very seriously. There is direct cause and effect between the answer to this question and the selection of a room.
The organizer must check the progress of the session to make sure each participant registers and/or submits a paper/poster by April 15. If a participant role is incomplete -either by not registering or by not submitting an abstract-the participant will not appear as part of their session in the preliminary or final program.
5) All volunteered program submissions are due to the AAA on April 15, 5PM ET.
6) If a panel includes a non-anthropologist, this person may apply to have the Association membership waived but must still pay the meeting registration fee. The non-member (not the organizer of the panel) can apply for the waiver when they go through the submission process.
If you have any questions about this process, please feel free to reach us at: Jcavanaugh@brooklyn.cuny.edu or mgalbrai@gmail.com
Jillian Cavanaugh and Marysia Galbraith
SAE Section Editors for AAA 2010 Annual Meeting
American Ethnological Society
Anthropology & Environment Section
Archeology Division
Assn for Africanist Anthropology
Assn of Black Anthropologists
Assn for Feminist Anthropology
Assn of Indigenous Anthropologists
Assn of Latina & Latino Anthropologists
Assn of Senior Anthropologists
Assn of Political and Legal Anthropology
Biological Anthropology Society
Central States Anthropological Society
Council for Museum Anthropology
Council on Anthropology & Education
Culture & Agriculture
Evolutionary Anthropology Society
General Anthropology Division
Middle East Section
National Assn for the Practice Anthropology
National Assn of Student Anthropologists
Society for Anthropology in Community Colleges
Society for the Anthropology of Religion
Society for Cultural Anthropology
Society for East Asian Anthropology
Society for Humanistic Anthropology
Society for Latin American and Caribbean Anthropology
Society for Linguistic Anthropology
Society for Medical Anthropology
Society for Psychological Anthropology
Society for the Anthropology of Consciousness
Society for the Anthropology of Europe (our section)
Society for the Anthropology of Food and Nutrition
Society for the Anthropology of North America
Society for the Anthropology of Work
Society for Urban, National and Transnational/Global Anthropology
Society for Visual Anthropology
Society of Lesbian and Gay Anthropologists