The 43rd German Studies Association Conference in Portland, OR from October 3-6, 2019 will continue to host a series of seminars in addition to conference sessions and roundtables.

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 and they consist of a total of 10 to 20 participants, including the conveners themselves. (In special cases there may be four conveners.) 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.

In order to facilitate extended discussion, seminar conveners and participants are required to participate in all three seminar meetings. Please note that both seminar conveners and seminar applicants who have been accepted for seminar participation will not be allowed to submit a paper in a regular panel session. However, they may take on one additional role in the conference as moderator or commentator on another session independent of their enrollment in a seminar, or they may participate in and/or organize a roundtable.

Although we accept proposals from conveners who have directed a seminar during the past two consecutive years, we give preference to newcomers and thus encourage the rotation of seminar conveners in similarly-themed seminars. We further recommend that conveners contact the coordinators of the Interdisciplinary Network Committee, Professors Pamela Potter ([email protected]) and Winson Chu ([email protected]), to establish an official GSA Network on their topic.

The application process has two steps. Initially, we invite you 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.)