LINGUIST List 8.329

Fri Mar 7 1997

All: Call for LINGUIST Online Conferences

Editor for this issue: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar <aristarlinguistlist.org>

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  • aristar, Call: LINGUIST Online Conferences

    Message 1: Call: LINGUIST Online Conferences

     Date: Fri, 7 Mar 1997 20:50:58 -0500
    From: aristar <aristarlinguistlist.org>
    Subject: Call: LINGUIST Online Conferences


    As many of you know, late last year LINGUIST ran its first on-line conference, _Geometric and Thematic Structure in Binding_. For those who did not get an opportunity to participate, the papers and commentary are available at LINGUIST Websites:

    Sites in the USA:

    http://linguistlist.org/linconf/ http://www.emich.edu/~linguist/linconf/ http://engserve.tamu.edu/files/linguistics/linguist/linconf/

    In Germany: http://www.sfs.nphil.uni-tuebingen.de/linguist/linconf

    In Russia: http://www.philol.msu.ru/linguist/linconf

    Our report on this conference was published in LINGUIST 7-1704. The URL is http://www.emich.edu/~linguist/issues/html/7-1704.html

    As this report indicates, we feel that this was a considerable success, and that this kind of conference format offered some advantages over the physical conference format. We had 10 excellent papers, a very large subscription--well in excess of 500 linguists--and much interesting, focused discussion on the issues. Many more people thus had an opportunity to read the conference proceedings than would normally be the case, and in a context which allowed them to consider their responses carefully. The papers and discussion, what is more, will remain available on the Web at our sites; this format thus offers much more opportunity for scholars to make their work available to the linguistic community, and to a much larger group than would normally be the case. We've therefore decided that we're going to make on-line conferences a continuing feature of the LINGUIST List.

    We're asking here for your input, and for your help. If we are going to continue to support conferences of this kind we need volunteers to serve as their organizers.

    We're asking that linguists who are willing to serve as organizers send us suggestions on conference topics. These can propose conferences in any area of linguistics, but they should be on a clearly defined topic, so that discussion, in the electronic medium, remains sharply focused. Since on-line conferences make their proceedings so immediately available, we suggest that good topics would focus on an issue which is of current theoretical importance. All proposals should explain the importance of the topic being proposed.

    The deadline for the receipt of such proposals is:

    April 15, 1997

    Organizers responsibilities will be as follows. They will:

    1. Define the topic of the conference 2. Put together a review board to read abstracts 3. Put together the final conference program 4. See that conference papers are sent to LINGUIST in an appropriate format. 5. Serve as moderator and prime discussant during the conference. 6. Write a conference report for posting to LINGUIST upon the completion of the conference.

    LINGUIST will be responsible the technical side of the conference: it will set up the ncessary Web pages, put in place the e-mail list needed, and ensure that the Web site functions appropriately during the conference.

    We might note that you--not we--will decide what conferences we hold in the future. In an electronic medium there is no reason why we cannot hold a number of conferences each year. How many we hold will decided by the number of volunteers we get to organize them. The only limit we will place on such on-line conferences is a practical one: we will hold only one conference a year in each subdiscipline, to ensure that the quality of papers remains high. In areas where there are competing theoretical positions--e.g. syntax--we will treat each theory as a separate subdiscipline.

    Anthony, Daniel, and Helen