“Dear Colleagues

The case for holding meetings in the southern hemisphere does not need to be made. The problem presented is neither geographic nor meteorological, but temporal.

If we meet anywhere in December (which we last did in 07 in Bochum where one saw no ’roos and was never inconvenienced by the heat of the day), and the next meeting is in the following summer, the gap presents a double funding need in the same budget year for everybody.

So, take the joys of Canberra as read; let’s hear it for Stockholm. Patrik and his colleagues are the folks in danger of finding themselves throwing a party which many of us invitees will be hard pressed financially to attend.

Any conference series which runs on an uneven pattern such as 12 months –12 months- 18th months — 6 months – 12 months will have this difficulty. Whoever volunteers to run the 6 month edition (as it were) potentially draws for themselves the short straw.

The real reason for southern winter meetings is that fixing a conference in a brief inter-semester break is hard. But let’s see what happens in ‘13 — not ’12 — before we reach a conclusion on this. The weather (surely) and prejudice (certainly) doesn’t have anything to do with it. If it did one could well have suggested that August in New York was completely impossible as functioning in a sauna (which is what is usually feels like) is obviously incompatible with rational thought.*

But look what a great time we had (thanks Jonathan and all your colleagues).

Brian Winston

*In the 80s, after it got too big for campuses, the AEJMC would betake itself to 5 star conference hotels in August where rooms were had at impossibly cheap rates for the good reason that no sane person would want them in August— I particularly recall Phoenix and New Orleans.
B”

“Hello all,

The last VE to be held in Australia was over a decade ago in Brisbane (please rest assured, for those who found subtropical Brisbane a bit steamy, that Canberra is much further south and a much more comfortable climate in December).

I believe that as an international community of scholars, it is of huge benefit to convene a VE conference in the Southern Hemisphere. It gives an enormous boost to those who find the tryanny of distance a real barrier to attending conferences on the other side of the world, and I believe it can be an eye-opening experience for those who have never ventured south of the Equator before.

As Cathie has outlined, the VE conference in December 2012 in Canberra will also be reaching out to scholars in our Asia-Pacific region to attend. (Personally I have found Oceania to be an extraordinary part of the world and there is so much documentary material from there yet to be discussed and debated)

So we here in the Land of Oz sincerely hope the VE community can find, as Chuck reminds us eloquently, ‘imagination and initiative’ enough to make it Down Under in December 2012!!

Best wishes,

Debra”

“Just a slight correction from the Stockholm delegation: Stockholm in
winter/December is not on the table, not so much for climate reasons as for
practical ones. Stockholm is planning for VE 2013 in August.

Patrik”

Another idea would be to sell digital registrations. Most universities are now equipped to webcast conferences. Digital participants would be free to Skype in their participation in discussions. And, at the risk of getting even further in touch with my inner neo-liberal, we might wish to package podcasts of the proceedings, with any revenues obtained going to subsidize graduate travel. (Chuck is right. It might be awhile before our various right wing governments increase funding for gatherings of earnest shit disturbers.)

Seth

“Hi everyone,

thanks Chuck for your comments. And just to reassure people re numbers and timing in Canberra. As Chuck says, December in Canberra is warm and very fair weather and that is why we are having it then. It has been very successfully in Australia before and in South America and in December, so there are a wonderful precedents for a southern hemisphere conference. Australia and New Zealand have graduate students too and like others, they are going to find it easier to attend what for them will be a local conference.

We are also intending to invite people from China and advertise strongly in South East Asia and Japan, so Viz Ev will expand its membership again, through regional contacts, as it did in the Istanbul and South American conferences. It is wonderful to see new people at the conference as it travels all around the world!

Organising a conference is a pretty big deal, and depends totally on registrations and local funding when it is available. We are lucky enough to have some support from the Australian National University to kick start the VE2012, and then we will be relying on registrations, although I am hoping the Australia/China Council might contribute to a key speaker – watch this space!

Re the lead up time to holding a conference, to be in anyway comfortable (if that is at all possible!) you do need a lead up time of at least 2 years. Alot of time and hopefully some money is invested with every bid that is made. And 2 years is the time it will have taken me to put into place all the arrangements that have already and still need to be made. At the NY meeting, there was a suggested bid locations that went up to 2015, and this is a good and useful strategy.

VEs are often 100-150 strong, except in some big mega city locations. this is a great number for a conference. But don’t be alarmed about the 3 day VE2012, we have venues for up to 5 parallel sessions if we need them, very comfortable ones at that. And I am exploring some skype/video conference options at the main venue too. So we can accommodate quite a large conference if that is how things turn out.

In my experience, the business meetings at VE are often somewhat confrontational but the wonderful slightly anarchic mechanism of VE has survived and will over nearly 2 decades. Sometimes only 6 people come to these meetings, and sometimes, as in New York, alot and this is very good, that people are interested enough to want to know what is happening, Things change, yes, but as Chuck says, it ain’t broke, and allows a flexibility and sense of comraderie that a formal structure and the hierarchy that inevitably follows, would lose. So I personally hope the present arrangement keeps going. No-one takes anything for granted. To make sure that the decision of previous business meetings was still standing, was one of the many good reasons I attended the NYVE: spending 6 days in NY during a teaching period – something I have gone to some effort to avoid for Northern Hemisphere travellers for VE12.

So do be reassured! Canberra is a great place for a conference as you will see. There will be new and different aspects to VE as always, and Australia is not a bad place to spend the Christmas break if you have the time! We are looking forward to welcoming you here next year, and I for one am also looking forward to Sweden in August 2013 and passing on whatever I have learned that is relevant, as has Jonathon whom I certainly will be in contact with over the next 12 months,
best wishes
Cathie Summerhayes”

“Just a few brief responses to Greg DeCuir’s post that might be useful background:

1. the problem with graduate student funding is that there’s no sugar daddy to provide it. SCMS manages a little bit of conference travel funds, but never enough, and subsidizes student memberships and has a sliding scale of membership depending on income. But that’s a big organization with several thousand members and a professional office staff and so forth.

related, I’d make two (uncomfortable for most) points:

a.) the top grad programs do offer travel funds for students to present at (a limited number of) conferences. Beyond that students have always found it possible to attend to local and regional conferences, use crash-pad accommodations, volunteer to work at the conference for a discount in registration, etc. etc. Imagination and initiative go a long way to mitigating the situation.

b.) students should get used to the idea of self subsidizing their professional development. Given the global economic situation, it’s not likely to change. Of course this is unfair and discriminates against many; but close budgeting is a professional skill too for academics. (Also mastering getting low cost flights.)

2. Paying an upfront conference fee shows you are serious and willing to make a commitment. When I ran one of the VE conferences, my Dean advanced me a pot of money to get started, but all the registration fees came back to pay it off. It still ended up a subsidy of the conference. I imagine most other places work the same way: an advance against expected income. The sad fact is that some folks apply for lots of conferences and then decide about going or not going later. Personally I think they are cynically playing a careerist game and mark them off on my —list. These opportunists are often complainers as well and ask for special favors, etc. And there are always weasels who only show up to deliver their paper and try to skip out on registration. (We know who you are.)

3. Local people should determine the length of the conference and other details. How many people can take the time and have the money to fly to Canberra? A lot less than those who could fly to NYC or Montreal. The local people have to do the fund raising….let them figure out what they can manage.

4. Because there are two hemispheres to the Earth, for half the globe, December is warm in some places, some very nice places. A December conference can be a “fair weather” conference. Rinse and repeat for daylight hours.

my two cents,
Chuck Kleinhans”

First of all, thank you to all those involved in maintaining the blog and the listserv. I find them both to be of excellent quality and outstanding value. My running, elliptical responses follow the general order of the report on the business meeting:

Not that I deserve to have an opinion on the organizational structure of the VE conferences since I’ve never organized one, but I’d tend to side with those who say what has been in play up to this date has worked thus far. Not only that, it has seemed to grow bigger and better. Do we need more rigid organization? Well, if it ain’t broke…

Dearth of graduate funding is definitely a problem. I’ll go one step further: I don’t believe post-graduates, graduates, or any student should be charged a registration fee to attend VE. It is incredibly expensive, which I found to my surprise when I went for the first time last year. This was a prohibitive factor in my decision not to come this year. Though honestly, even if I didn’t have to pay registration, I wouldn’t have been able to afford the NYC travel expenses anyway. I felt very sad that VE 2011 was clearly such a class above and beyond my means this year.

I believe that how to run the conference and how to run the website are two separate issues. They can be merged, but perhaps that would limit the creative horizons and maneuverability of each.

Not quite sure what the justification is for removing a day from the conference schedule. Also don’t quite understand why we would want to cut in half the number of potential participants. If a smaller institution is interested in hosting the event that doesn’t mean the event should be downsized to fit their needs, unless there is an excellent reason why there would be such value to host at said institution. I don’t like the idea of a December conference, so close to Christmas at that. VE should be a fair-weather conference!

I would love to support Stockholm as next year’s site, if only to bring VE back to Europe and also for rather selfish reasons — so it would be closer and more accessible to me. Though I agree that the idea of Stockholm in December has not won me over as a fan. Then again, maybe the possibility is not much worse than Istanbul in August!

Conference registration should automatically place you on the listserv. I also agree that organizational progress reports should be circulated to the listserv (also uploaded to the website if it is feasible). Looking forward to seeing the 21st century listserv. It has already been wonderful so far!

Best regards,

Greg DeCuir, Jr.
Doctoral Candidate, Faculty of Dramatic Arts in Belgrade