Ne AATSEELom edinym: SLAVIC at MLA!

[K. Dziwirek]

Dear colleagues,

I am so glad this discussion is starting! As a linguist I have found it of
little value to have AATSEEL meetings coincide with the MLA.

As a mom of a
amall child, I have found it very hard to justify leaving my child in the
holiday season (when his pre-school is on break and I have to make
complicated and costly arrangements, which often consist of my husband's
taking time off from his work to care for our son).

As a West Coast inhabitant,
I have found it very inconvenient to travel in the winter to the East
coast (where the meetings are typically held) and face delays caused by
the weather.

Most of us on the West Coast are also on the quarter system,
which means that our classes start right after New Year and allows us
virtually no time off between fall and winter quarter. Our classes end Dec
11th or thereabout. If we want to attend AATSEEL and have any sort of
holiday we are rushing between finishing our papers and trying to make the
holidays memorable and meaningful for our families. Then we go to AATSEEL
and then we start to teach again. This schedule has made December one of
the more hateful months for me, and lately made me give up going to
AATSEEL. Though it is one of the best platforms for Slavic linguistics and
the place to hear about most recent research that colleagues are involved
in, and to share your work, for me it is just not worth it to go thru' the
hell involved in  trying to go and present a decent paper and have a
decent holiday.

For years I thought it was just me (I am not organized enough, not
superwoman enough, etc...), but have been talking to some colleagues
recently and discovered that other people feel the same way!

So, WHY do we have the meetings in December????

If people can't afford going to the MLA anyway, and a whole
bunch of us (high-school teachers, language pedagogy specialists,
linguists of all kinds) don't benefit from going to the MLA at all????
Please, people in power, give some thought to moving the meeting time!
best wishes,
kat


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Katarzyna Dziwirek
dziwirek at u.washington.edu
Department of Slavic Languages and Literature, box 353580
University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195
tel. (206) 543-7691
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