Call for Seminar Proposals – 44th GSA Conference

The 44th German Studies Association (GSA) Conference will take place from October 1-4, 2020 in Washington, D.C.

Seminars meet for all three days of the conference. They explore new avenues of academic exchange and foster extended discussion, rigorous intellectual debate, and intensified networking. Seminars are typically proposed and led by two to three conveners (in special cases, there may be four conveners) and must consist of a minimum of 10 and a maximum of 20 participants, including the conveners themselves and any auditors. Conveners are expected to make every effort to aim for broad diversity and include scholars from different disciplines and at different career stages, including graduate students. Seminars may enable extended discussion of a recent academic publication; the exploration of a promising new research topic; engagement with pre-circulated papers; an opportunity to debate the work of scholars with different approaches; the coming together of scholars seeking to develop an anthology; or the in-depth discussion of a political or public policy issue, novel, film, poem, musical piece, painting, or other artwork. Conveners are strongly encouraged to structure their seminars around creative and engaging forms of intellectual exchange; lengthy individual presentations are discouraged as they imitate “traditional” panels and may hamper discussion, collaboration, and innovative thinking.

Starting in 2020, seminar conveners will have the opportunity to propose a cluster of pieces representing the work of the seminar for publication in Konturen, a peer-reviewed, online, open-access journal of international and interdisciplinary German Studies.

Applying to convene a seminar is a two-step process. Initially, the Seminar Committee invites GSA members to submit a preliminary proposal that includes the following items:

1. Title of proposed seminar
2. Names, ranks, and institutional affiliations of conveners
3. A 150-word description of the seminar’s subject (which will eventually be used in the call for participants, the printed program, and the online program/mobile app)
4. A 50-word description of the seminar’s format (which will appear in the call for participants, etc.)
5. A 200-word statement of seminar goals and procedures.

These items are due by November 22, 2019, by 11:59 pm EST. Applications must be submitted online at https://www.xcdsystem.com/gsa.

Following the submission of preliminary proposals, the GSA Seminar Committee will provide suggestions and assistance for the final submission, which is due by December 6, 2019, 11:59 pm EST to the same website. The Committee will then review seminar proposals and post a list of approved seminars and their topics on the GSA website by January 6, 2020. Conveners may then enlist participants to join the seminar. A call for auditors (who may observe but who are not considered formal participants) will be issued later in the year, once the final conference program has been published.

Additional information about seminars and submission process is available in the Call for Seminar Applications.

The GSA Seminar Committee consists of:

Joe Perry (Georgia State University) | jbperry@gsu.edu (chair)

Elizabeth Drummond (Loyola Marymount University) | elizabeth.drummond@lmu.edu

Richard Langston (University of North Carolina) | relangst@email.unc.edu

Inquiries should be addressed to all members of the GSA Seminar Committee.

General information about the conference is available here: https://www.thegsa.org/conference