Because the convention will have over 300 panels and over 900 panelists, NeMLA relies on session chairs to be the intermediary with the panelists and to help ensure that the convention runs smoothly, exhibiting the highest scholarly standards.
Please read the following guidelines carefully, and do not hesitate to contact the Executive Director, Elizabeth Abele, at Northeast.MLA@gmail.com if you have any questions, ideas, or concerns.
NeMLA looks for focused sessions that will draw interesting, quality abstracts. For your proposal, the NeMLA Board looks for a brief abstract that establishes your approach and goals for the session (outside research not required). The description should be tightly written, to describe your session to potential applicants and includes how you want to receive abstracts; at the minimum the description should include your name and email. Since this description will be used for the newsletter and website with other sessions, we ask you to keep it brief. In your own promotion of the session, you may use a more developed description. Co-chairs are allowed.
When proposing a session, note that session titles are limited to 80 characters, and this count includes spaces (for example, the title My Title is eight characters long). Session descriptions are limited to 550 characters (including spaces). These limits are not arbitrary; they have been chosen to ensure readable convention materials on the web and in printed programs. The submission form will truncate titles and descriptions that exceed these limits. Note that session abstracts are limited to 300 words. This ensures abstracts are concise and facilitates the timely review of abstracts by area directors.
The Call for Papers will be mailed to all current and recently lapsed NeMLA members, but I encourage you to do your own legwork in advertising your panel. Use listserves; send flyers; post announcements in your field. One good place is the "Call for Papers" website at: http://www.english.upenn.edu/CFP.
NeMLA does not accept pre-formed panels. Wait until September 30 before constituting your panel. You are obliged to consider all the available submissions and choose the best papers. Remember that you, as the Chair, may present a paper at your own session or instead choose to present on another panel.
Make sure you have full contact information for your panelists so that you can be sure of your ability to reach them. Consult the guidelines below for the appropriate number of participants for your submission type. Since the traditional panel and roundtable formats are significantly different, requests to change panles to roundtables after September 30 will only be granted under rare circumstances.
You are expected to practice professional courtesy in acknowledging all the submissions you have received and in mailing both acceptance and rejection letters to all those who submitted papers or abstracts. Rejection letters are particularly difficult, but we owe them to our colleagues.
Traditionally, NeMLA members submit abstracts to more than one proposed panel. Before mailing any rejection letters, please contact your accepted panelists and ask for a commitment to your panel. (Remember, participants may deliver only one paper of any type at the convention).
Please inform your panelists that they must pay their membership/registration and media handling fee (if applicable, $10) by November 30. Direct your panelists to the NeMLA web site for convention updates and membership/registration information.
Your completed panel information is due no later than October 15. Submit the information via our website. If you decide to withdraw your panel, please inform us promptly so that we will no longer hold the space for you. If your panelists cancel, likewise inform NeMLA as soon as possible. Make sure you have full contact information for your panelists so that you can be sure of your ability to reach them.
When submitting session information, note that paper titles are limited to 100 characters, and this count includes spaces (for example, the title My Essay is eight characters long). This limit is not arbitrary; it was chosen to ensure readable convention materials on the web and in printed programs. The submission form will truncate titles that exceed this limit.
NeMLA is a juried convention and sometimes one must turn down even fine proposals. Panels may elect to change to seminar format to accommodate more than 4 participants.
If you have a strong justification for a second panel, you may submit it online. Second panel requests will be answered November 1.
All participants must be NeMLA members and registered for the convention by Nov. 30. A late fee of $25 will be added to membership/registration after Dec. 1.
No one may present more than one paper. It is permissible to present a paper and also to participate on a roundtable or creative session.
No more than two people from the same institution (including the panel chair) will be allowed on any session, without prior approval from the NeMLA Board.
No one may chair more than one session of a type.
Sessions may be of four types: a) Paper presentations, b) Creative presentations, such as poetry, fiction, and reflective and autobiographical pieces, c) Roundtable discussions, and d) Seminars, a more focused discussion between participants who circulate their papers before the convention.
Paper sessions must have 3-4 papers. Creative sessions must have 3-6 presenters. Roundtables must have 3-6 participants.
Members may present a paper at a paper session and still present a paper at a creative session, participate in a roundtable, or be a respondent at another session.
Sometimes a good proposal will draw a poor response or no response at all. If you require an extension or decided to withdraw your panel, please inform the Executive Director promptly so that support can be offered or your space can be released.
As you might imagine, it will take time to process and enter your completed panel form. After we have entered all the panels, in December, you will receive a panel proof that you will be asked to correct for the online and print programs.
NeMLA strongly suggests that panelists keep their audio-visual requests appropriate, i.e. not requesting a media projector when handouts can work as well. At the same time, NeMLA is committed to providing proper support to panelists’ scholarship. NeMLA charges panelists a media handling fee of $10 for standard audio-visual requests (TV/VCR/DVD, slide projector, overhead projector, media projector).* There is a 2 person minimum for Media Projector Requests, please relay this to your panelists. No media request will be honored if the media handling fee is not received via Acteva by Dec. 1.
With their acceptance, please inform your panelists of NeMLA’s audio-visual policy, and coordinate their requests — your panel will run more smoothly if your panelists use complementary equipment.
Please do everything in your power to encourage your panelists to honor their commitment to attend the convention. NeMLA does not allow papers to be read in absentia regardless of the circumstances. Please inform me if any of your panelists withdraw. If you are not able to attend, please find someone else to chair your panel and inform me as soon as possible.
If you or any of your panelists have published books and would like them displayed at the NeMLA meeting, please contact your publisher and ask them whether they plan to exhibit at the convention. If they do not, please encourage them to contact Debby Pitts at The Scholar's Choice. Once again The Scholar's Choice will be having a combined book display at the meeting and, for a fee, can exhibit books for them. Debby may be reached at djpitts@scholarschoice.com or at 585-262-2048 x108
In order to ensure readable convention materials on the web and in printed programs, NeMLA enforces strict character limits on convention materials. These limits are as follows:
These character counts include spaces (for example, the title My Essay is eight characters long). The web forms used to collect session information for the CFP and convention materials strictly enforce these character limits and will truncate any text that exceeds them. This includes the web forms used by NeMLA staff to update convention materials.
As a courtesy to session chairs, any field in a web form that enforces a character limit includes a counter beneath the field that informs you of the number of available characters remaining. The text you enter into these fields turns red when you exceed the character limit; the counter below the field also turns red and displays a count of negative characters to indicate the number of characters by which you have exceeded the limit. If you submit truncated materials, NeMLA staff may revise your information to address the problem without consulting you. Please be sure to observe these limits to prevent confusion during proofing and errors in convention materials.
Note that in some unusual cases, characters may be counted incorrectly. This typically happens with text that includes unrecognized unicode characters, which are required to properly display particular characters in some languages (unicode characters contain more bits of information than ASCII characters, and can be counted differently unless we add them to a list of expected characters). If you feel the materials you submitted were incorrectly truncated, email the truncated text and your session ID to websupport@nemla.org, and we are happy to investigate the problem and update the submission scripts as necessary to address it.