Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS)

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Central Eurasian Studies Society
Ninth Annual Conference (2008)

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September 18-21, 2008
Georgetown University, Washington, DC, U.S.A.

Call for Papers

Submission of Proposals

Schedule of Key Dates

Registration and Fees

Travel and Accommodations

Invitation Letters

Further Information

Click here to view the Preliminary Program. Please keep in mind it is subject to change.

The Central Eurasian Studies Society (CESS) invites panel and paper proposals for the Ninth CESS Annual Conference, September 18-21, 2008, in Washington, D.C. The event will be held at Georgetown University, hosted by the Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies (CERES). Panels begin Friday morning, September 19, and continue through mid-day on Sunday, September 21.

Panel and paper topics relating to all aspects of humanities and social science scholarship on Central Eurasia are welcome. The geographic domain of Central Eurasia extends from the Black Sea and Iranian Plateau to Mongolia and Siberia, including the Caucasus, Crimea, Middle Volga, Afghanistan, Tibet, and Central and Inner Asia. Practitioners and scholars in all humanities and social science disciplines with an interest in Central Eurasia are encouraged to participate.

The program will feature approximately 60 panels and there will also be a supplementary program including cultural events, a welcome reception on Thursday, a conference dinner and a keynote speaker.

Deadline for submission of panel/paper proposals: Wednesday, April 16, 2008.

Submissions of pre-organized panels are strongly encouraged and will be given some preference in the selection process. Individual papers are also welcome and will be assigned by the program committee to an appropriate panel with a chair and a discussant. Only electronic submissions will be accepted, preferably via the webform available on the CESS website. Click here to jump to Registration information.

*** In order to improve the academic quality and the registration process of the annual conference, the CESS Conference Committee has instituted several new policies. Please read and attend to the policies detailed below.***

FULL DETAILS OF CONFERENCE PARTICIPATION

Please note that due to an anticipated high level of interest in the 2008 conference, the selection of papers will be very competitive, and we encourage all potential presenters to consider working with colleagues to arrange a pre-organized panel, as this will improve your chances of acceptance. Successful proposals will offer new findings based on theoretically informed, empirically rich research. As always, we strongly encourage the participation of graduate students and scholars from Central Eurasia.

The Conference Committee accepts electronic submissions only -- either by webform (see the CESS website: http://www.cess.muohio.edu), or by an e-mailed form in MS Word format (if you do not have access to the webform, please contact us at cess@muohio.edu and we will e-mail you the submission forms in MS Word format).

The following information is required for submissions; we suggest that you prepare the text before accessing the website so you can simply paste the information into the form (but do not send it without the form!).

For individual papers and for each presenter on a regular panel please make sure you provide us with:

1) Name, 2) Current institutional affiliation, 3) Title/position, 4) E-mail address, 5) Postal address, 6) Telephone, 7) Fax, 8) Title of Paper, 9) Abstract of Paper (a summary of the paper of 200-300 words; abstracts longer than 300 words may be rejected), 10) Any audio-visual equipment requests (specify -- e.g., overhead projector, slide projector, video player), 11) A brief (100 word) biographical statement that contains the information which the panel chair may require for introductions, and includes the presenter's educational background (highest degree, year awarded, awarding institution, and field of study).

For panels:

Proposals may be submitted for REGULAR PANELS (with the presentation of 3-4 scholarly papers) and ROUNDTABLE PANELS (featuring 3-6 people informally discussing a current topic in the field). Pre-organized panels should be thematically coherent and may be organized/sponsored by a scholarly organization.

Please note the following policy: only complete panels with a full set of panelists, including a chair, (and a discussant for regular panels) should be submitted. If a panel or roundtable receives a high score from the reviewers but does not include a full complement of panelists, the panel may be wait-listed until it is complete.

ROUNDTABLE panels

CESS encourages other institutions supporting the study of Central Eurasia to organize "sponsored panels" at the CESS conference -- i.e., panels organized by the sponsoring institution, involving their members and receiving their imprimatur (and possibly their funding). CESS partner organizations are customarily granted one panel slot upon request. For more information on partnering with CESS, please contact the secretariat at cess@muohio.edu.

Best Paper Graduate Student Award: There will be an award in the amount of $500 given to the best graduate student conference paper submitted to the Awards Committee for consideration. See the CESS awards webpage for details, or contact the Awards Committee Co-chair, Dr. Uli Schamiloglu <uschamil@wisc.edu>.

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IMPORTANT NOTES:

1. Submission format

We anticipate that the selection process will be quite competitive in 2008. Your proposal will be anonymously peer-reviewed and scored based on the quality of its abstract; personal factors such as your institutional affiliation, academic status, and history with CESS have little impact on whether or not your proposal will be accepted.

- Abstracts that do not include information about the theoretical and/or empirical contributions of the research will have significantly lower chances being accepted. If you want to know more about how to write a good abstract, please follow the Guidelines for Writing Abstracts available on the CESS website http://www.cess.muohio.edu/CESSpg_conf_abgu.html.

- If you participate in the conference, your abstract will be published on the CESS website, so please write it carefully to avoid errors. Those less accustomed to writing in English should have their abstract proofread prior to submission. Abstracts written in very poor English or apparently translated word-for-word from another language will be rejected, under the assumption that the author does not have sufficient command of English to present the paper.

By submitting a proposal, you are indicating your serious intention to participate in the conference -- including your commitment to take the necessary steps to obtain any required visa or funding.

- You will be asked to confirm your commitment to participate by the end of July, so please try to have your travel and funding arrangements in place by then. Note that CESS rules stipulate that those who do not confirm their participation in the conference by August 1 will be DROPPED FROM THE PROGRAM and their slot on the program will be given to another presenter.

- Those who fail to appear at the conference without timely notice to the Conference Committee will be considered "no-shows" and will be barred from participating for the next two years. The deadline for such notification is Friday, August 15, and after this date, no registration fees can be refunded. However, if an individual faces extraordinary circumstances at the last minute that prevent him or her from attending the conference (such as the denial of a visa), these circumstances will certainly be taken into account.

- It is CESS policy not to allow papers to be read in absentia.

Since all communication with conference participants is via e-mail, it is vitally important that you make sure we always have an active e-mail address for you. If we lose contact with you after your proposal is accepted, you may be dropped from the program, so please keep us posted of any changes to your primary email address, and please respond to requests from the Conference Committee in a timely manner.

No participant may present more than one paper at the conference, including roundtable presentations. Without special justification, the program committee will not schedule any individual to appear on more than two panels as a presenter, chair or discussant. If you have a paper included on a pre-organized panel and you also submit an individual paper, the pre-organized panel takes precedence and if it is accepted, your other paper proposal will not be considered.

The language of the conference is English. All presentations are to be made in English; translation from other languages is not allowed.

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Schedule of Key Dates

Deadline for pre-payment or withdrawal from the program: Friday, August 15.

For those not on the program, pre-payment of registration fees reserves a space at the conference, in the event that attendance reaches the maximum capacity.

Pre-payment of registration fees and a current membership in CESS is REQUIRED for everyone on the program (with the exception of chairs and discussants specially invited by the host institution). All presenters must pay their registration and (if necessary) membership fees by this deadline or they may be DROPPED FROM THE PROGRAM. NOTE: Presenters without access to the regular methods of payment should just email the CESS Secretariat (cess@muohio.edu) to request an exemption from this requirement.

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Registration Information

Please note that submission of a paper for presentation, whether individually or as part of a panel, automatically registers you for the conference. However, if your paper is not accepted and you still wish to attend the conference, you will need to fill out the Registration Form for Non-Presenters. To submit a paper, propose a panel, or register as a non-presenter, click on the links below.

Submission Form for Individual Papers
Submission Form for Panels
Registration Form for Non-Presenters

Each conference attendee is required to pay a registration fee, and presenters are also required to pre-pay. The fee is reduced for CESS members, for Georgetown University students, and for those who pay their registration fees before the pre-payment deadline of August 15. The level of the fee also depends on your CESS membership dues category (with some members being entitled to reduced dues -- see the CESS Membership Form for details).

Payment of registration fees IS REQUIRED for all attending the conference, and covers a welcome reception on Thursday and the conference dinner on Friday. The deadline for pre-payment (required for all presenters) is August 15.

Fees for 2008 are as follows:

* "Regular fee members" are those who have paid their annual dues at $50.
** "Reduced fee members" are those who have current membership at reduced fees ($0-$20).

Panel participants may submit the registration fee at the same time as submitting their proposal form, or at any time before the pre-payment deadline of August 15. We accept payment by 1) cash (only at the conference), 2) check or money order (if not from a US bank, please contact us to find out what form is acceptable from your country), 3) credit card (see the Credit Card Payment Form). Check and money order payments should be mailed to: Central Eurasian Studies Society, Havighurst Center, Harrison Hall, Miami University, Oxford, Ohio 45056, U.S.A.. Please consult the CESS Membership Form for full details on methods of payment.

IMPORTANT NOTE:

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Travel and Accommodations

Information about the Georgetown University and the city of Washington, DC, transportation options, maps, and lodging information will be available on the Georgetown University's CESS Conference Information page at http://www1.georgetown.edu/sfs/ceres/CESS2008/. Please be sure to visit this web page for detailed information.

All conference participants are responsible for making their own arrangements for travel and accommodations. CESS does not have sufficient resources to subsidize travel and accommodations for conference participants.

If you need an invitation letter, click here.

The Co-chairs of the Conference Committee are:

Dr. Laura Adams (Harvard University; lladams2@earthlink.net)
Dr. Victoria Clement (Western Carolina University; vsclem@yahoo.com)
Dr. James Millward (Georgetown University; millwarj@georgetown.edu)

Full information about CESS 2008 in Washington, DC may be found on Georgetown's conference webpages: http://www1.georgetown.edu/sfs/ceres/CESS2008/

Virtually all questions about the conference can be answered by consulting the above-mentioned webpages. If you don't find the answer to your questions there, you can contact the conference organizers by e-mail at cess@muohio.edu.

Local Arrangements

Communications regarding local arrangements in Washington, DC, INCLUDING INVITATION LETTERS, should be addressed to: CESS@georgetown.edu.

CESS 2008 Annual Conference
Center for Eurasian, Russian and East European Studies
Georgetown University
Box 571031, ICC 111
Washington, DC 20057-1031

Telephone: 1-202-687-6080
Fax: 1-202-687-5829

Communications about proposal submission, program matters, registration matters, the mailing list, and data updates should be sent to the CESS Secretariat. Please send check payments also to:

Central Eurasian Studies Society
Havighurst Center, Harrison Hall
Miami University
Oxford, Ohio 45056, U.S.A.
Telephone: 1-513-529-0241
Fax: 1-513-529-0242
CESS@muohio.edu

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This page was last updated on July 29, 2008.

The CESS 2008 Annual Conference is hosted by Georgetown University Contact the CESS 2008 Conference Committee at: cess@muohio.edu To join CESS, please see the Membership Form. To join the CESS Occasional Mailing List, please see the Sign-up Form. Go to: Front Page of the Central Eurasian Studies Society's website Contact CESS at: CESS muohio.edu The Central Eurasian Studies Society is hosted by the Havighurst Center for Russian and Post-Soviet Studies at Miami University, Oxford, Ohio