NORTH AMERICAN CONFERENCE ON
BRITISH STUDIES ANNUAL MEETING
PORTLAND, OR 
NOVEMBER 8-10, 2013 

The NACBS and its Pacific affiliate, the Pacific Conference on British Studies, seek participation by scholars in all areas of British Studies for the 2013 meeting.  We will meet in Portland, Oregon from November 8-10. We solicit proposals for panels on Britain, the British Empire and the British world. Our interests range from the medieval to the modern. We welcome participation by scholars across the humanities and social sciences.

We invite panel proposals addressing selected themes, methodology, and pedagogy, as well as roundtable discussions of topical and thematic interest, including conversations among authors of recent books and reflections on landmark scholarship. We are particularly interested in submissions that have a broad chronological focus and/or interdisciplinary breadth. North American scholars, international scholars and Ph.D. students are all encouraged to submit proposals for consideration.  Panels typically include three papers and a comment, and ideally a separate chair; roundtables customarily have four presentations, as well as a chair; proposals which only include papers will be less likely to succeed.  We are not able to accommodate individual paper proposals; those with paper ideas may search for additional panelists on lists such as H-Albion or at venues such as the NACBS Facebook page. Applicants may also write to the Program Chair for suggestions (nacbsprogram@gmail.com).

All scholars working in the field of British Studies are encouraged to apply for the 2013 conference, though we particularly welcome submissions from those who did not appear on the 2012 program. Panels that include both emerging and established scholars are encouraged: we welcome the participation of junior scholars and Ph.D. candidates beyond the qualifying stage. To foster intellectual interchange, we ask applicants to compose panels that feature participation from multiple institutions. No participant will be permitted to take part in more than one session and no more than one proposal will be considered from each applicant.

The submission website is http://nacbs.ucmerced.edu/call-for-submissions; submissions will close as of March 25, 2013. 

If you have questions about the submission process or suggestions for program development, please contact

Susan D. Amussen
NACBS Program Chair
Professor of History
University of California, Merced
Email: nacbsprogram@gmail.com

NACBS Conference Submission website
The site will be open until March 25, 2013 

Instructions:

We are accepting only complete panel proposals.   You will need the following information for your submission:

For each participant:  Name, Affiliation, Status, and email address; a biographical sketch with key recent publications

For those giving papers (as opposed to chairs or comments) we also need the title of the presentation and a brief abstract

Please note: the submission database is used to create the program, so please be as accurate as possible in your information.  In particular, the names of institutions should be as they should appear in the program.  So even if you always use initials, or a short name, please use the formal name of the university.  

Please note: All communication will be directly with the organizer of the panel; we lack the staff to send individual letters to all participants.

FAQ:

Can I submit a single paper?

No. If you have been unable to find colleagues to create a panel, it is unlikely that we can find two papers to create a coherent and compelling panel.

May I submit more than once?

While you may place your name on multiple panels, with extremely rare exceptions, participants can only be on the program once; if you have your name on multiple submissions which are accepted, we will ask you to remove yourself from one.

How can I increase the chances that my panel will be accepted?

In 2012, we had to reject about one quarter of the sessions.   Some of those would have been excellent additions to the conference.  There is no way to guarantee acceptance. There is no clear rule, but in general the panels that have the greatest difficulty being accepted are ones consisting entirely of graduate students or recent Ph.D.s   We also generally frown on sessions from just one institution.   We encourage you to include papers from more advanced scholars along with those by recent Ph.D.s: name recognition helps build audience.  Finding a chair and comment for your session helps too: when choosing between two equally good sessions, we usually choose the one where we don’t have to find the rest of the panel.

Do we need a chair and comment?

Every proposal should have a designated chair.  If you are proposing a set of papers rather than a roundtable, you should have a comment, though the same person can do both.   (Ideally different people serve these different roles, however, and we will often try to fill the role of chair.)  There are two major types of panels:

1. Roundtable: Usually 3-4 scholars, with a chair, and more informal consideration of a theme or topic.   This session focuses on a discussion of the issues, so often does not have a designated commentator.
2. 3 (or 4) paper panel:  Here participants deliver formal papers, and there is always a commentator.  You should note that the time constraints mean that in a four paper panel there are usually only 15 minutes per paper, so this is very rushed.  With four participants, you might want to think about a more dialogic format, like a roundtable.

Please note:  Panels not submitted through the submissions website cannot be considered.

If you have further questions, please contact NACBSprogram@gmail.com