Dear AWSS members,
As you probably know by now, this year is a very special one for our constituency and intellectual interests inside the larger AAASS community. Not only is past AWSS President Beth Holmgren, one of the great supporters of our group, the AAASS President, but gender is the theme of the conference. In addition, AWSS will celebrate its twentieth anniversary at this conference. Given all these great circumstances, we believe it is imperative that this year we make ourselves seen and heard at the conference as never before, and along those lines, we want to put a special effort in helping to bring to Philadelphia colleagues from the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe.
With this goal in mind, AWSS is launching a fundraising campaign. The organization already has some modest funds ($800) to support these foreign scholars, and we would like to augment them by making a pledge to offer matching amounts out of our investment fund for each dollar that is donated by our AWSS members into this travel fund. If you offer $20, AWSS will add $20 to the fund. If you offer $50, we will double that. If you are feeling very generous and want to offer $500, we will also gladly add $500 to that. For those donating $50 or more, we will include your name in an upcoming issue of the newsletter, as well as our website. And don't forget that all contributions are tax deductible.
Please send your contributions as soon as possible to Kris Groberg, at Dr. Kris Groberg, 324D Department of Visual Arts, NDSU Downtown Campus, 650 NP Avenue, Fargo, ND 58102. Please be sure to make your check out to AWSS.
Gratefully yours,
Maria Bucur, Vice President/President-Elect, AWSS, on behalf of the AWSS board
The Association for Women in Slavic Studies invites nominations for the 2008 Heldt Prizes for works of scholarship and translation, which will be awarded at the AWSS meeting at the AAASS National Convention in Philadelphia in November 2008. To be eligible for nomination, all books and articles for the first three prize categories must be published between 15 May 2007 and 15 April 2008. The publication dates for the translation prize, which is offered every other year, are 1 June 2006 to 15 April 2008.
One may nominate works in more than one category, and more than one item in each category. Articles included in collections will be considered for the "best article" Prize only if they are individually nominated.
To nominate any work, please send or request that the publisher send one copy to each of the four members of the Prize committee by 1 May 2008:
Maria Bucur
Indiana University
8400 Ketcham Rd.
Bloomington, IN 47403
Choi Chatterjee
UCLA
2239 Holliston Ave,
Altadena, CA 91001
Helena Goscilo
University of Pittsburgh
1015 Portland St.
Pittsburgh PA 15206
Sarah Phillips
Department of Anthropology
130 Student Building
Indiana University
Bloomington, IN 47405
The Outstanding Achievement Award Committee of the Association of Women in Slavic Studies invites nominations for its 2008 prize. To nominate, please 1) write a letter detailing what your candidate for this award has achieved in Slavic Studies in terms of a) scholarship or other professional accomplishment and b) mentoring of female students/colleagues; 2) provide a short list of references with accompanying email addresses so that the committee can contact these referees discreetly for further information. We'd recommend that this list include both peers and students/staff.
Please email your letter and list by September 15 to the committee members:
Funding opportunity: Association for Women in Slavic Studies (AWSS) Travel Grants to Conferences for Scholars from the Former CIS and Soviet Block Countries
AWSS is pleased to announce that it once again will be awarding grants to scholars from the former Soviet Union and Soviet bloc countries to help support research or conference travel. Conference or research topics must be related to the mission of the AWSS, to encourage women's studies and support women scholars. If you are interested in applying, please send the following information to Rochelle Ruthchild, Committee Chair, at: ruthchil@yahoo.com:
Deadlines: February 1 and June 15, 2008. Those receiving grants will be required to submit a brief report on their funded activities.
The 2008 AWSS Graduate Essay Prize will be awarded to the best dissertation chapter or article-length essay in any field or area of Slavic/East European/Central Asian Studies written by a woman or on a topic in Slavic/East European/Central Asian Women's Studies written by a woman or a man. This competition is open only to current doctoral students or to those who defended a doctoral dissertation in 2007-2008. If the essay is seminar paper, it must have been written in 2007-2008. If the essay is a dissertation chapter, it should be accompanied by the dissertation abstract and table of contents. Previous submissions and published materials are ineligible. Essays should be no longer than 50 pages, including reference matter, and in English (quoted text in any other language should be translated). The award carries a cash prize of $250; the winner will be announced at the AAASS national convention in November. Please send a copy of the essay and an updated CV to Natasha Kolchevska, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, 229 Ortega Hall, MSC03 2080, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM 87131. All submissions must be postmarked by July 15th.
The Association for Women in Slavic Studies announces its annual competition for the Zirin prize. This prize of $500 is named for Mary Zirin, the founder of Women East-West. Working as an independent scholar, Zirin produced and encouraged many of the fundamental works in Slavic Women's Studies. The Zirin Prize aims to recognize the achievements of independent scholars and to encourage their continued scholarship and service in work that is pertinent to the field of Slavic Women's studies.
The Zirin Prize Committee will accept nominations, including self-nominations, for the award until November 1, 2008. Nominations should include a two-page, double-spaced narrative outlining the nominee's achievements and the nominee's CV. Describe the nominee's past and present contributions and relevant work in progress.
The committee urges the nomination of candidates at all career stages. For the purpose of this award, an independent scholar is defined as a scholar (1) who is not employed at an institution of higher learning, or (2) who may be employed by a university or college but who is not eligible to compete for institutional support for research (for example, those teaching under short-term contracts or working in administrative posts). We urge nominations of worthy scholars from the CIS and from Central and Eastern Europe.
Nominations should be sent to Martha Kuchar at kuchar@roanoke.edu, or via mail to Martha Kuchar, Dept. of English, Roanoke College, 221 College Lane, Salem, VA 24153 (phone: 540-375-2320).