General Rules for Convention Participants

Click a category below to read detailed rules and guidelines for participating in the ASEEES Convention.

DEFINITIONS

TWO-SESSION/ONE-PAPER RULE

RULES AND BEST PRACTICES FOR PROPOSALS

MEMBERSHIP

SCHEDULING

PREREGISTRATION

CANCELLATION

CODE OF CONDUCT POLICY & HEALTH AND SAFETY PROTOCOLS

 

Organizer
 An organizer is the person who submits the panel, roundtable, or lightning round proposals or meeting requests and serves as the main point of contact. You may organize as many panels or roundtables as you wish. An organizer who is also a chair, discussant, or presenter on a panel, roundtable, or lightning round must list themselves more than once in the submission process, as both organizer and participant. Organizers are responsible for contacting ASEEES regarding changes to their sessions, including participant withdrawals.

Participant
 Participants are the chairs, paper presenters or roundtable/lightning round speakers, and discussants. An organizer is not considered a participant because we do not print the organizer's name in the convention program unless they are also participating in the session.

Panel
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. Panels must have: 1 chair; a minimum of 3 to maximum of 4 papers; and at least 1 discussant, with a maximum of 2. If the panel includes a fourth paper, the length of the session does not change. While one role per participant is strongly preferred, the chair may serve also as a discussant or a paper presenter, if necessary. A paper presenter cannot be a discussant for the same panel on which they are presenting.

Roundtable
Roundtables entail structured discussion of a topic/theme. Roundtables must have: 1 chair; and a minimum of 3 speakers, with a maximum of 5. Serving as a roundtable speaker does NOT count as a paper presentation in the Two Session/One-Paper Rule. While one role per participant is strongly preferred, the chair may also serve as a roundtable speaker if necessary; in such a case, there must be at least 4 roundtable speakers. 

Book Discussion Roundtable: Book discussion roundtables entail discussion of a recently published book of importance to the field. Please use the roundtable submission category to submit a book discussion roundtable proposal. In the session title, please add "Book Discussion:" followed by the title of the book and author (i.e. “Book Discussion: The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry”).  The above rules for roundtables apply. If the book author plans to attend the discussion of their book, they must be listed as a “Book Author” in order to avoid scheduling conflicts (book authors do not appear in the convention program and this does NOT count as a session for book authors in the Two Session/One-Paper Rule). For edited volumes, we cannot accommodate the inclusion of “Book Authors,” either for editors or chapter authors. Having more than one “Book Author” listed in a session proposal can make it impossible for us to schedule the session, so we limit this role to monograph authors/co-authors.

Lightning Round
Lightning Rounds entail short presentations by 6-8 speakers, each giving a 5-minute presentation on a related theme/topic. A lightning round must have a chair but does not have a discussant. Proposals may include graduate students at all levels. A lightning round presentation does NOT count as a "paper presentation" in Two Session/One-Paper Rule.

Individual Paper
Proposals for individual papers, or papers not associated with a panel, will be reviewed and accepted only for the virtual convention and only if they fit into a coherent panel that is then approved by the Program Committee. Acceptance rate for individual paper submissions is MUCH LOWER than for panel submissions. The Program Committee strongly urges all scholars to use the ASEEES Paper/Panel Wanted Board, the ASEEES Convention Facebook Group, SEELANGS, H-Net, and other means of networking to form a full panel rather than submit an individual paper proposal. If your individual paper proposal was accepted for the previous year's convention, you cannot submit another individual paper proposal for this year.

DO NOT SUBMIT an individual paper proposal for a paper that is already part of an organized panel proposal, and DO NOT SUBMIT an individual paper proposal if you are already presenting any paper on any other proposed panel. IF YOU DO SO, YOU JEOPARDIZE BOTH THE INDIVIDUAL PAPER PROPOSAL AND THE PANEL PROPOSAL.

Film Screening
 Proposals for film screenings may only be submitted for the in-person convention. ASEEES encourages, but does not require, that film submissions align with the current convention theme. If your film is accepted, you will be required to submit proof of permission to screen the film. It is the submitter's responsibility to get in touch with the film’s distributor. The submitter is also responsible for the logistics of the screening during the convention, which include supplying a laptop and necessary adaptors to show the film. ASEEES will provide a room with a projector, speakers, and a screen. A/V help will be available on site.

Affiliate Group Meeting
ASEEES affiliate organizations may request ONE meeting room at the convention. We will do our best to accommodate all requests depending on space availability. In your request,you should list an organizer and up to 3 people (for example, the organization’s officer who will attend the meeting) as moderators. This will help us in scheduling the meeting in a time slot that will not conflict with the individual schedules of those listed as moderators. An affiliate group business meeting moderator does not count as a participant and a meeting does not count as a session in the Two Session/One-Paper Rule. The meeting will be listed in the convention program.

Ancillary Event
Ancillary events include receptions, literary events, meetings (excluding the affiliate group meetings), etc. To reserve a room for your organization's ancillary events, use the online program submission site. Ancillary events are typically held in the evenings after the convention sessions have ended and cannot be scheduled at the same time as ASEEES organized events, such as the Opening Reception and the Award Ceremony.

A convention participant may appear on the program in no more than two sessions (panels, roundtables, or lightning rounds) and may present only one paper on a panel in total during the convention (both virtual and in-person combined). If you present a paper on a virtual panel, you cannot present another paper on an in-person panel. There are no exceptions to this rule.

Session Titles: Give your session a clear and descriptive title and summary. Sessions as well as individual and panel papers (one per paper) all require short abstracts. Session/paper titles are limited to 20 words; session/paper abstracts are limited to 250 words. Good titles and descriptions are essential for the review and scheduling processes and help other participants find your panel in the program during the Convention.

Institutional Diversity: A session should not be made up of presenters from a single institution. A session made up of participants from only one institution will likely be rejected.

Student Participation: Graduate student participants should generally be at the research stage in their PhD programs, and panels composed primarily of graduate students should include at least one member who has completed their terminal degree. A proposal made up only of graduate students will most likely get rejected. We will accept lightning round proposals from MA students; however, MA students who have not previously presented at national conferences are encouraged to present at one of the regional affiliate conferences first. We do not accept undergraduate proposals. 

Panel Discussants: Ideally, panel discussants should be at the post-doctoral level. If a graduate student is designated a discussant on a panel, reviewers will likely ask the organizer to add a second discussant at the post-doctoral level. If a professor is serving as a discussant on a panel with their current graduate student(s), a second discussant must be added to the panel.

Themed Series of Sessions: Submitter(s) can propose a series of sessions on a related theme, with a maximum of 4 sessions in a series. The sessions should have the same title, followed by a Roman numeral. Subtitles are optional. Example: “Soviet Film I: Stalinist Cinema,” “Soviet Film II: Thaw Cinema,” “Soviet Film III: Stagnation Cinema.” Keep in mind that sessions may not be scheduled in the order they were submitted. 

Gender Diversity: Gender diversity on panels/roundtables is strongly encouraged. Organizers should make a good faith effort to create sessions that contain members of more than a single gender. The Program Committee reserves the right to ask organizers to redesign sessions that do not follow this guideline.

Racial, Ethnic, and Nationality Diversity: Sessions that have participants of diverse racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds are strongly encouraged.

Disciplinary Diversity: Sessions that have more than one disciplinary representation are strongly encouraged.

Special Consideration: Special consideration will be given to panels reporting on recent field or archival research, especially those that include presentations by junior faculty and/or graduate students at the PhD research stage.

Affiliate Organization Sponsorship: Affiliate organizations of ASEEES are each allowed to sponsor ONE panel or roundtable. This must be specified when the session is submitted. Each affiliate-sponsored panel/roundtable will be reviewed in the usual manner by the Program Committee.

Note: All participants must have an individual profile, including a brief Professional Biography, in the ASEEES member site in order for organizers to submit proposals. Non-members can create a profile without becoming a member. If an individual has ever been a member at any time since 2011, they should already have a profile in the ASEEES database, but they will need to add a brief Professional Biography. If unsure, please contact us.

Membership Requirement for Convention Participation:

  • By March 1: All session organizers and individual paper submitters in the US and abroad must be current members of ASEEES in order to submit a proposal for the convention.
  • By May 15: All roundtable, panel, and lightning round participants who are in Slavic, East European, and Eurasian studies fields in the U.S. or abroad MUST be ASEEES members upon receiving notification of proposal acceptance. This includes representatives of institutional members; institutional membership does not flow down to individual representatives.

NOTE: If you wish to have the full benefit of ASEEES membership, we strongly recommend that you become a member by February 1.  Our membership is based on the calendar year and expires on December 31 no matter when you become a member in a given year. Learn more about membership in ASEEES.

NOTE:  For 2024, ASEEES is offering free membership and convention registration to scholars and graduate student participants who are listed in the convention program and who are Ukrainian citizens and currently residing in Ukraine or displaced outside of Ukraine due to Russia's war on Ukraine. For more information and to apply, click HERE.

WHO DOES NOT NEED TO BE A MEMBER:

  • Scholars and specialists outside the field of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian studies do not need to become members. They can request a membership exemption, and must still register for the convention as non-members.

Session organizers are responsible for letting panelists know about registration fees and membership rules.

With more than 40 sessions scheduled in a given time slot, it is impossible not to have some thematic overlap. The following parts of the submission process help the Program Committee to avoid such scheduling issues:

  • Session Categories for Scheduling: The categories are used for scheduling purposes only. Your selection of a particular category has no bearing on whether or not a proposal is accepted. Select a category that best fits your proposal. For example, if your panel has two papers on 20th c. literature and one paper on 21st c. literature, select "Literature: 20th Century" rather than "Literature: 21st Century."
  • Keywords for Scheduling: Enter up to 5 keywords that can be used to avoid scheduling sessions with the same keywords.

If you agree to participate in the ASEEES Convention, you are agreeing to be scheduled during any of the planned sessions. Please DO NOT SUBMIT PERSONAL SCHEDULING REQUESTS. We will honor specific scheduling requests only for religious reasons. (Read Mike Hickey's article in the May 2008 issue of NewsNet: "The Five Obstructions" or "Why somebody's panel has to meet on Sunday morning".)

All participants on panels/roundtables/lightning rounds, members and non-members, should pre-register by the deadline and pay the registration fee. Failure to pre-register will lead to the participant's name being removed from the Index of Participants in the convention program. See Convention Registration for more information.

CANCELLATION

If a scheduled participant is unable to participate in the convention, they must notify their session organizer AND also notify ASEEES by filling out the change request form. Failure to register or notify ASEEES of cancellation may lead to exclusion from future conventions.

CODE OF CONDUCT POLICY & HEALTH AND SAFETY PROTOCOLS

By participating in the in-person and/or virtual ASEEES Convention, you agree to abide by the ASEEES Code of Conduct Policy and any health and safety protocols.

 

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