Int'l Congress of Slavists

[robert orr]

I have been following the discussion on the International Congress of
Slavists with great interest.  As a non-American, I suppose it's a wee
bit cheeky of me to comment, but I do have a simple suggestion:
Why does the Committee not simply issue a call for abstracts/papers (with
deadlines attached), have them refereed as for a journal, etc., etc, and then
simply accept the ones that stay the course?
    I have participated in two Congresses now (actually attended one of them!)
and both times I simply stayed the course.  What seems to have happened in
Canada on both occasions is that ten papers were to be accepted as Canadian
contributions - over twnety people declared their intention to submit, but
as deadlines came and went only seven or eight ended up actually being included
- the rest dropped out for various reasons.  Perhaps the same process could
be applied in the US?
   Just a thought