LINGUIST List 7.1706

Tue Dec 3 1996

All: Call for Conference Topics

Editor for this issue: Anthony Rodrigues Aristar <aristarunix.tamu.edu>

Directory

1. The LINGUIST List, Call for Conference Topics

As many of you know, last month 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

As our report (LINGUIST 7-1704) 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, minimally, two
things:

 1. Suggestions for future conference topics
 2. Volunteers to serve as their organizers.

We're asking that linguists who are willing to serve as organizers
send us conference proposals. These proposals can cover 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 immediately available, we
suggest that good topics focus on an issue which is of current
theoretical importance. All proposals should explain the importance
of the topic being proposed.

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 for the technical side of the conference: it
will set up the necessary 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. How many conferences we hold will be 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: to ensure that the quality 
of papers remains high, we will hold only one conference a year in each 
subdiscipline. In areas where there are competing theoretical 
positions--e.g. syntax--we will treat each theory as a separate 
subdiscipline.

Anthony, Helen, and Daniel