As an Associate Organization with the Renaissance Society of America (RSA), GEMELA has the opportunity to organize up to for up to four panels for the annual conference. The upcoming event will take place in Chicago, IL from March 21-23, 2024. If you plan to attend this conference, please consider submitting a complete panel, lightning talk panel, roundtable, seminar or workshop. Guidelines for proposal formats include can be found here. All submissions should focus on women’s cultural production in the Spanish- and Portuguese-speaking worlds before 1800. The organization aims to disseminate information and knowledge about women and their role as cultural producers. Our participation in conferences such as this encourages teaching and research based on all approaches related to our principal field of inquiry.
Applicants for GEMELA panel sponsorships must be current members of our organization. Renew your GEMELA membership here. As far as RSA membership, applicants do not need to be Society members at the time of submission, but, if successful, all members of the panel should join the Society before the 2023 RSA meeting. Regular RSA membership rates are based on income. For 2023 rates, please consult https://www.rsa.org/page/membershiprenewal.
Participants are also expected to be/become RSA members and to register for the conference and are responsible for covering their own travel and lodging costs. Limited travel grants are available to members of the Renaissance Society of America. Visit https://www.rsa.org/page/PlannedGiving
GEMELA strongly supports panels that represent the diverse voices in our field. Session organizers should strive to include a variety of career stages, institutions, backgrounds and perspectives in their panels.
Sponsorship of a session by GEMELA signifies that it is pre-approved and automatically accepted for presentation at the RSA 2022 meeting.
This year, the RSA has broadened session formats to include the following:
- Paper panels: three or four 15- to 20-minute papers, to be presented in-person. May include a panel respondent, if there are three papers.
- Seminars: five or six pre-circulated papers, with the live session devoted entirely to discussion of the shared materials. (Seminar paper authors may present a précis or introduce their talk, but there will not be enough time for seminar papers to be presented in full. Seminar organizers and chairs are responsible for dividing up and managing the time allotted as they see fit.)
- Lightning talk panels: up to eight short presentations of
5-10 minutes each, which may or may not include a visual aid. Lightning
talks may address in-progress research and other topics that are not yet
developed into a full-length conference paper. Lightning talk topics could
be based on the following:
- An argument from your current work (PhD dissertation or article)
- Initial findings from side projects/archival work
- Pedagogical questions
- Field-/experience-based observations
- Roundtables: A discussion-based session of four to eight participants based around a central topic or question that is conveyed in the session abstract.
- Workshops: for instance, on translation, transcription, archives, or any number of possible topics or activities that are suited to a collaborative or interactive format.
The deadline session proposals to Sarah Finley, First Vice-President and GEMELA’s associate organization representation for the RSA is July 21, 2023. Participants will be notified of decision’s regarding GEMELA’s panel sponsorship by Monday, August 7.
Guidelines for what to include in session proposals can be found here and are also listed below. Please send a single Word document with your complete session proposal to sarah.finley@cnu.edu by July 21, 2023.
For all formats (panel, lightning talk panel, seminar, roundtable or workshop), organizers should submit the following:
- A session title (maximum 15 words)
- Organizer, chair and any respondents
- A session abstract that summarizes the unifying themes, research questions, and goals of the session as a whole, and other compelling factors, such as but not limited to the papers’ collaborative building upon a theme, relevance to an anniversary year or conference site, and timely social and intellectual extensions (maximum 300 words). The session abstract should contain minimal information identifying the participants.
- Indicate the session format
In addition, session proposals should alsoinclude specific materials for each format.
Panel (3-4 presenters)
Each paper presenter should submit:
- paper title (15-word maximum)
- paper abstract (200-word maximum)
- resume (.pdf or .doc upload)
- PhD or other terminal degree completion year (past or expected)
- full name, current affiliation, and email address.
Lightning talk panel (5-8 participants)
Each lightning talk speaker should submit:
- lightning talk title (15-word maximum)
- lightning talk abstract (200-word maximum)
- resume (.pdf or .doc upload)
- PhD or other terminal degree completion year (past or expected)
- full name, current affiliation, and email address.
Seminar (4-6 presenters)
Each seminar paper presenter should submit:
- paper title (15-word maximum)
- paper abstract (200-word maximum)
- resume (.pdf or .doc upload)
- PhD or other terminal degree completion year (past or expected)
- full name, current affiliation, and email address.
*For this format, please note that seminar organizers are responsible for collecting and distributing their participants’ presentation materials in advance of the conference. PDFs and additional files may be hosted on rsa.org if this is arranged in advance by no later than Friday, 1 March 2024. Contact rsa@rsa.org with any questions about the pre-circulation of seminar materials.
Roundtable or workshop
- session title (15-word maximum)
- session abstract (300-word maximum)
- organizer(s), chair(s)
- names of discussion participants (minimum four, maximum eight)
- current email addresses and affiliation for all participants
- PhD or other terminal degree completion year for all participants