Information about Int'l Congress of Slavists

[Michael Flier]

Dear George,

Thank you for your recent letter, in which you clarify the chronology of
the distribution of advance information about American participation in
the XII International Congress of Slavists in Cracow, September 1998. In
fact, the initial letter was sent in November 1994 to all Ph.D.-granting
Slavic programs, as has been done in the past.  Chairs were requested to
duplicate the four-page letter and distribute it to all departmental
colleagues and "to other qualified Slavists who might not otherwise have
an opportunity to see it." At Harvard, I personally put copies of the
letter into every faculty mailbox and sent others out to colleagues who
had expressed interest in the Congress. In response to concern in the past
that active scholars not employed in the above-mentioned Slavic programs
had usually learned about the call for papers too late, I requested that
AATSEEL publish the letter and the application blank in the December 1994
issue of the newsletter, and Ray Parrott graciously agreed to do so,
giving it front page coverage to boot. A call for papers was also placed
in the AAASS newsletter.

The range of scholars from whom the American Committee of Slavists (ACS)
received applications suggests that the wider dissemination was
successful. Nonetheless, given the technology available today, I am
certain that creating an ACS home page with basic information, application
forms, and regular updates would improve communication even more and be
less costly than conventional mailings. [We have tried to reduce expenses
to an absolute minimum to reserve the funds that accrue from the
quinquennial collection of application fees for the publication of the
*American Contributions* volumes. Even so, contributors must pay
subventions based on page count to ensure publication. Chuck Gribble has
been tremendously supportive in subsidizing various publication costs
through Slavica Publishers.]

As for eligibility, I agree with you that continuing the requirement of a
Ph.D. in hand at the time of submission of the abstract is appropriate.
As I have tried to make clear in my earlier communications, there are many
steps between the submission of a title and the publication of a Congress
contribution. The abstract is the primary basis on which the ACS can
decide whether or not a contribution may be approved and we need to have
concrete information about the contributor's status at that time.  But the
abstract is, after all, only one step. If an abstract is approved, but the
final paper falls considerably short of the mark on qualitative,
quantitative, or stylistic grounds, the editors of *American
Contributions* have the authority to reject the paper, hence the August
1996 date you mention in your letter. This date is important as a cutoff
point, because we must inform the Polish organizing committee of the final
list of delegates and alternates in September 1996 and can only do so
*after* we know whose contributions will be published [prepublication is a
prerequisite for delivering a paper at the Congress].

The criterion of regular employment reflects an original policy
undoubtedly meant to insure quality control. The goal of ACS has always
been to attract the best possible representives of American scholarship in
Slavic [and I emphasize *Slavic*] languages and literatures for Congress
participation. In the past, such scholars typically populated Slavic
departments with graduate programs offering the Ph.D. The 1990s are not
the 1970s, however, and this particular criterion should be re-examined in
light of modern-day employment patterns. I will raise this issue with
the Executive Committee at our next meeting and thank all of those
colleagues who have brought it to our attention.

On the quite different issue of retirees, I should note that emeriti who
have participated in past Congresses have always been welcome to submit
applications. This includes prominent and very active emeritus scholars like
Horace Lunt, Catherine Chvany, Henrik Birnbaum, and Cornelius van
Schooneveld. The latter two have, in fact, applied for participation in
the Cracow Congress.

In closing, let me say how delighted I am to see the ACS generating so
much electronic activity. That kind of interest bodes well for
continued American representation at the Congresses of the future.

Best regards,

Michael Flier, Chairman
American Committee of Slavists


On Thu, 23 Nov 1995, George Fowler wrote:

> Greetings!
>      Much as I hate to support "authority" in any case (and I am NOT a
> member of the American Committee of Slavists), I have to chime in on this
> litany of complaints about the inadequacy of information about the
> International Congress of Slavists. I would like to point out that
> information was probably adequate this time, and CERTAINLY *better* than
> the previous time! Michael Flier sent out a letter to Slavic programs in
> mid-December, 1994 (as I recall; this could be inexact). Our department at
> Indiana got it, and the chair circulated it to everyone. I summarized the
> procedures in the Calendar of events in the 1994 AATSEEL abstract book
> which every linguist who attended AATSEEL in St. Louis should have gotten a
> copy of, and was then pleasantly surprised to find that the exact mailing
> of three pages or so with full details was reproduced in its entirety in
> the December 1994 AATSEEL Newsletter. It's listed on the cover, in bold
> print, and it occupies pp. 18-20 of the issue.
>      A web page and other possible avenues of publicity would obviously be
> helpful; and it could be that the mailing list for the call for papers
> could be expanded. But according to the update sent out to people who
> proposed papers, which I saw today, no less than 84 people applied (for 50
> spots; not bad odds, really). So the information was available.
>      As to the issue of qualifications, first raised in this forum by Frank
> Gladney, there is at least a partial case to be made on behalf of
> standards. I don't think requirement (1) is objectionable (Ph.D. in hand by
> January 1, 1996). That's the date that abstracts are due (selection is
> primarily, if not exclusively, based upon abstracts), so this is more
> liberal than I remember in the past, when I think the Ph.D.-in-hand
> deadline was before the time of declaring one's intention to submit an
> abstract. After all, this is a once-every-five-years event, and it makes
> some sense to restrict it to somewhat more established scholars, at least
> with a dissertation under their belts. After all, what is a dissertation
> for? It is intended to demonstrate that the author can sustain a certain
> level of argumentation, in terms of length and (hopefully) originality. At
> least this is RELEVANT to the question of who should best represent the
> American community of Slavists, even if one could argue that it isn't
> infallible. People who get their Ph.D. later can propose for the next one.
>      Criterion (2) is "regular (not occasional) academic employment in an
> American college or university. This excludes part-timers and (temporarily)
> unemployed scholars, some of whom are very sharp (there but for the grace
> of God go I...) and, as Frank pointed out, retirees. Do we really want to
> exclude, for example, an esteemed and active scholar such as Horace Lunt?
> Or Catherine Chvany? And I am sure there are equally important retired
> scholars on the lit side, e.g., is Victor Terras retired?
>      I can think of two reasons for this policy: 1) give the younger
> scholars a better chance, by not allowing established scholars to
> monopolize the roster after retirement; 2) to make selection less painful
> by limiting in this way the pool of possible candidates. The first is
> standard reasoning; the second is a bit touchy--but I can't say it
> represents ill will; I'm sure the ACS is trying to make things work as well
> as possible.
>      This has turned out to be a bit of a shaggy dog posting. The main
> point is, information was at least adequate, if not overabundant. A
> secondary point is, given that a selection procedure is necessary, the two
> eligibility criteria are at least defensible (although I personally
> disagree strongly with the idea of excluding retirees).
>      Let me close by thanking Michael Flier and the ACS for at least making
> it pretty clear in the call for papers how the selection procedure will be
> conducted. (The call for papers said that it would be based upon abstracts
> exclusively; the letter fudges a bit on this, by pushing the participation
> decision back to August 1996, i.e., AFTER the deadline for submitting the
> actual paper, which would presumably permit the ACS to accept a larger
> number of abstracts, and then evaluate the papers to separate them into
> "delegates" and "alternates". This is not unreasonable.) Compare this to
> the previous Congress, when I, at least, had NO IDEA that my paper would be
> accepted until I got a letter from Alan Timberlake, the linguistics editor,
> asking for certain revisions.
>      George Fowler
>
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