General Rules for Convention Participants

Click a rule below to see more details.

RULE 1: DEFINITIONS, PARTICIPATION RULES, GUIDELINES, AND LIMITATION

RULE 2: MEMBERSHIP AND CV/BIO INFO

RULE 3: SCHEDULING

RULE 4: PREREGISTRATION

RULE 5: CANCELLATION

RULE 6: AFFILIATE GROUP MEETING REQUESTS

RULE 7: film screening proposals

RULE 8: Code of Conduct Policy and health and safety protocols

 

Panel
Panels entail presentation of prepared papers (distributed in advance to a discussant) on a related topic or theme, followed by structured discussion of those papers. A complete panel must have: one chair; minimum of 3 to maximum of 4 papers; and at least one discussant, with a maximum of 2. While one role per participant is strongly preferred, the chair may serve also as a discussant or a paper presenter, if necessary.  However, a paper presenter cannot be a discussant for the same panel on which they are presenting. If the panel decides to include a fourth paper, the length of the session does not change and each paper presenter will therefore have less time to present.

Roundtable
Roundtables entail structured discussion of a topic/theme. Roundtables must have: a chair; and minimum of 3 to maximum of 5 roundtable speakers. Serving as a roundtable speaker does not count as a "paper" presentation in the Two Session/One-Paper Rule. While one role per participant is strongly preferred, the chair may serve also as a roundtable speaker if necessary; in such a situation, there must be at least 4 roundtable speakers.  

Book Discussion Roundtable: A book discussion roundtable should be a discussion of a recently published book of importance to the field. In the session title, please add "Book Discussion" followed by the title of the book and author. Please use the roundtable submission category to submit a book discussion roundtable proposal. The rules above for roundtables apply.

Lightning Round

Lightning Rounds entail short presentations by 6-8 speakers, each giving a 5-minute presentation on a related theme/topic. A lightning round must have a chair but no discussant. An example of a lightning round may be "New Directions in East-Central European History,” with 6-8 PhD candidates and/or recent graduates presenting their dissertation topic in five minutes each, or "Assessing US-Russian Relations," with 6-8 MA/PhD students and/or other professionals each providing a 5-minute briefing paper. For the lightning round, proposals may include graduate students at all levels. A lightning round presentation does NOT count as a "panel paper" in the Two Session/One-Paper Rule.

Individual Paper

*NEW as of 2023: Individual paper proposals will ONLY be considered for the VIRTUAL CONVENTION due to the high withdrawal rate of individual paper presenters for the in-person convention. If you wish to submit a proposal for the in-person convention, you must do so as part of a panel proposal.

Individual papers proposals not associated with a panel for the virtual convention will be reviewed and accepted only if they fit into a coherent panel, and if that panel is then approved by the Program Committee. Space constraints may also preclude our ability to accommodate all individual papers proposed. Acceptance rate for individual paper submissions is MUCH LOWER than for panel submissions.  The Program Committee strongly urges all scholars to use the ASEEES Paper/Panel Wanted Board, ASEEES Convention Facebook Group, SEELANGS, H-Net, and other means of networking to form a full panel rather than submit an individual paper proposal. If your individual paper proposal was accepted for the previous year's convention, you cannot submit another individual paper proposal for this year.

DO NOT SUBMIT an individual paper proposal for a paper that is already part of an organized panel proposal, and DO NOT SUBMIT an individual paper proposal if you are already presenting any paper on any other proposed panel. IF YOU DO SO, YOU COULD BE JEOPARDIZING BOTH THE INDIVIDUAL PAPER PROPOSAL AND THE PANEL PROPOSAL.

 

Definition of "Participant": "Participants" are the panel chair, paper presenter, and discussant; roundtable/lightning round chair and presenters. An "organizer" is not considered a "participant" because we do not print the organizer's name in the convention program. An affiliate group business meeting moderator does not count as a "participant."

Definition of "Organizer": An organizer is the person who submits the panel, roundtable, or lightning round proposals or meeting requests.  Being an organizer does not count as a "participant" because we do not print the organizer's name in the convention program. You may organize as many panels or roundtables as you wish. An organizer who is also a participant on the panel or roundtable must be listed more than once, as both the organizer and in the participant role. 

Two-Session/One-Paper Rule: A convention participant may appear on the program in no more than two sessions (panels or roundtables) and may present only one paper on a panel in total during the convention (both virtual and in-person combined). For example, if you present a paper on a virtual panel, you cannot present another paper on an in-person panel. There can be no exceptions to this rule. Being a roundtable/lightning round presenter does not count as a paper presentation. Please Note: If you submit an individual paper proposal for the virtual convention, it constitutes your one paper presentation. 

Special Consideration: Special consideration will be given to panels reporting on recent field or archival research, especially those that include presentations by junior faculty and/or graduate students at the PhD research stage.

Gender Diversity: Gender diversity on panels/roundtables is strongly encouraged. Session organizers should make a good faith effort to create panels/roundtables that contain members of more than a single gender. The Program Committee reserves the right to ask organizers to redesign panels/roundtables that do not follow this guideline.

Racial, Ethnic, and Nationality Diversity: Panels/roundtables that have participants of diverse racial, ethnic, and national backgrounds are strongly encouraged.

Disciplinary Diversity: Panels/roundtables that have more than one disciplinary representation are stongly encouraged.

Institutional Diversity: A panel/roundtable should not be made up of participants from only one institution. The presenters on a panel/roundtable must be from at least two different institutions. A session made up of participants from only one institution will likely get rejected.

Student Participation: As a rule of thumb, graduate student participants should generally be at the PhD research stage in their programs, and panels composed primarily of graduate students should include at least one member who has completed their terminal degree. A proposal made up only of graduate students will most likely be rejected. For the lightning round, we will accept proposals from MA students. However, MA students who have not presented at national conferences are encouraged to present at one of the regional affiliate conferences first. Undergraduate proposals are not accepted. 

Rules on Panel Discussants: Panel discussants should ideally be at the post-doctoral level. If a graduate student is designated as discussant on a panel, a second discussant at the post-doctoral level should be added to the panel. If a professor is serving as a discussant on a panel with their current graduate students, ideally a second discussant should be added to the panel.

Themed Series of Sessions: Submitter(s) can propose a series of sessions on a related theme, with a maximum of 4 sessions in a series. The sessions should have the same name, followed by a Roman numeral after each session title. Subtitles are optional. Example: “Soviet Film I: Stalinist Cinema,” “Soviet Film II: Thaw Cinema,” “Soviet Film III: Stagnation Cinema.” Keep in mind that sessions may not be scheduled in the order they were submitted due to time zone variables or other scheduling challenges. 

Affiliate Organization Sponsorship: Affiliate organizations of ASEEES are each allowed to sponsor ONE panel or roundtable, which must be specified on the proposal form. Each affiliate-sponsored panel/roundtable will be screened in the usual manner by the Program Committee; we do not accept unscreened proposals.

All participants must have their individual profile, including their brief Professional Biography information (max 1000 characters), in the ASEEES members site. Non-members can create a profile without becoming a member. If an individual has ever been a member since 2011, they should already have a profile in the ASEEES database, but they will need to add their brief Professional Biography. If unsure, please contact us.

Membership Requirement for Convention Participation:

WHO NEEDS TO BE A MEMBER:

  • By March 15: All individual paper submitters and all session organizers in the US and abroad must be current members of ASEEES in order to submit a proposal for the convention.
  • By May 15: All roundtable, panel, and lightning round participants who are in any related Slavic, East European and Eurasian studies fields in the U.S. or abroad MUST be ASEEES members upon receiving notification of proposal acceptance, which should be announced in late April. This includes representatives of institutional members; insitutional membership does not flow down to individual representatives.

NOTE: If you wish to have the full benefit of ASEEES membership, we strongly recommend that you become a member by Feb. 1.  Our membership is based on the calendar year and expires on Dec. 31 no matter when you become a member in a given year. Learn more about membership in ASEEES

NOTE: For 2023, ASEEES is offering free membership and convention registration to scholars and graduate students who are Ukrainian citizens and currently residing in Ukraine or displaced outside of Ukraine due to Russia's war on Ukraine. For more information and to apply, click HERE.

WHO DOES NOT NEED TO BE A MEMBER:

  • Only scholars and specialists outside the field of Slavic, East European and Eurasian studies do not need to become members. They can request a membership exemption, and must still register for the convention as non-members (Registration exception: Exhibitors with exhibitor badges who are also participating in sessions do not need to register separately for the convention, though they should notify the office so that they can be recorded correctly.)

Organizers are responsible for letting panelists know about registration fees and membership rules. 

With approximately 30-40 panels and roundtables generally scheduled in a given time slot, it is impossible not to have some overap in sessions on similar topics.  You can help the program committee try its best to avoid such scheduling issues by doing the following two things in the proposal:

  • Session Category for Scheduling: The categories are used for scheduling purposes only.  Your selection of a particular category has no bearing on whether or not a proposal is accepted. Select a category that best fits your proposal. For example, if your panel has two papers on 20th c. literature and one paper on 21st c. literature, you might wish to select "Literature: 20th Century" rather than "Literature: 21st Century." 
  • Keywords for Scheduling: Enter up to 5 keywords that can be used to avoid scheduling sessions with the same keywords.  

If you agree to participate in the ASEEES Convention, you are agreeing to be scheduled during any of the planned sessions. We will honor specific scheduling requests only for religious reasons. (Read Mike Hickey's article in the May 2008 issue of NewsNet: "The Five Obstructions" or "Why somebody's panel has to meet on Sunday morning".)

All participants on panels/roundtables/lightning rounds, members and non-members, must preregister by the deadline and pay the registration fee. Failure to preregister will lead to the participant's name being removed from the Index of Participants in the convention program. See Convention Registration for more information.

Rule 5: Cancellation

If a scheduled panel/roundtable participant is unable to participate in the convention, they must notify the session organizer AND the ASEEES Convention Manager. Failure to register or notify ASEEES of cancellation may lead to exclusion from future conventions. 

Rule 6: Affiliate Group Meeting Requests

ASEEES affiliate organizations may request a meeting room at the convention. Each organization is allowed only ONE meeting.  We will do our best to accommodate all requests depending on space availability.  Please submit the request by the deadline. You must list an organizer; you can list up to 3 people as moderators. These could be the organization officers who must attend the meeting, for instance. This will help us in scheduling the meeting in a time slot that will not conflict with session schedules for those listed as moderators. The meeting will be listed in the convention program.

RULE 7: film screening proposals

All film screening proposals for the in-person convention must be submitted via the online submission site by April 1. No submissions will be accepted after this deadline. We will not offer film screenings during the virtual convention. ASEEES encourages, but does not require, that film submissions align with the current convention theme.

The proposal should include names of those who will introduce the film and conduct a brief post-screening discussion, as well as a link to the film trailer or clip.

In order for your film submission to be considered, you must have permission to screen the film and the trailer. If your film is accepted, you will be required to submit proof of permission by June 1. It is the submitter's responsibility to get in touch with the film’s distributor.

Acceptance notifications will be sent in late May.  

The proposal submitter is responsible for the logistics of the screening during the convention, which includes supplying a laptop and necessary adaptors to show the film. ASEEES will provide a room with a projector, speakers, and a screen. A/V help will be available on site.

By participating in the in-person and/or virtual ASEEES Convention, you agree to abide by the ASEEES Code of Conduct Policy and any health and safety protocols.

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