ACCUTE is pleased to announce that the 2025 ACCUTE conference will take place within Congress at George Brown College in Toronto in the spring. The dates for ACCUTE’s conference will be announced once confirmed.
The ACCUTE conference includes general panels as well as organized panels. At this time, ACCUTE is accepting proposals for Member-Organized Panels, Joint-Sponsored Panels, and Creative Writing Panels for the 2024 conference.
MEMBER-ORGANIZED PANELS
Member-Organized Panels are proposed by an ACCUTE member for the annual ACCUTE conference. Member-Organized Panels are not invitational: the organizer describes the topic but does not pre-select the participants. As with general submissions to the ACCUTE conference, paper proposals and submitted papers are peer-reviewed with the panel organizer acting as the first vettor. The organizing member is expected to attend the ACCUTE conference to act as Panel Chair. Note: Member-organizers do not typically present on the panels they organize and are ineligible for ACCUTE travel funding unless they are submitting a paper on another panel.
CREATIVE WRITING PANELS
Creative Writing Panels are also member-organized panels, but they are organized as part of the Creative Writing Collective (CWC) and will focus on creative writing practice, pedagogy, and professional concerns. They may also take the form of literary readings or presentations on creative writing contexts and research. The CWC encourages proposals covering a range of topics, such as decolonization and creative writing; creative writing mentorship and pedagogy; building anti-racist writing workshops; craft and process. The submission process is the same as for Member-Organized panels.
JOINT-SPONSORED PANELS
Joint-sponsored panels are co-sponsored by another academic association. These panels are most often initiated by an ACCUTE member who is also a member of the organization that jointly sponsors the panel. Joint-sponsored panels are intended to foster links between ACCUTE and other scholarly associations, whether those associations regularly attend Congress or not. Of special interest to ACCUTE are those organizations that address fields that have traditionally been under-represented at our conference. While ACCUTE welcomes panels that correspond with the annual Congress theme, any topic that reflects ACCUTE’s mandates or the interests of its members will be considered.
RETURNING PANELS ORIGINALLY ACCEPTED FOR CONGRESS 2024
Member-organized panels of all categories described above that were proposed and accepted for inclusion in the 2024 ACCUTE conference will automatically be included in the 2025 program at the request of the organizer. We request that organizers, in this case, communicate with their panelists to confirm their commitment to participate on the panel in Toronto in 2025 and then notify us that the panel as originally planned will be part of the 2025 conference. Alternatively, panel organizers may choose to re-advertise their previously accepted panel proposals again in the current call, to fill in any papers that may have dropped from the original slate. Further, if you no longer wish to go forward with your planned member-organized panel, but one or more participants from your 2024 panel still wish to present their work at Congress 2025, please let us know and we will include those papers in the general conference programming.
The ‘panels’ deadline, to submit new panels, returning panels, or to notify us that a panel will return as it was scheduled to happen in 2024, or will not be returning from last year’s programming, will be the same in all cases: Friday, 13 September 2024. See HOW TO SUBMIT A PANEL PROPOSAL, below.
PANEL FORMATS
ACCUTE panels are typically 90 minutes in length. A panel may follow the conventional three- or four-paper format, but we also encourage proposers to consider alternative formats such as:
- Round Table: Participants briefly present and have a discussion on a designated topic.
- Workshop: Participants work collaboratively and with attendees on a practical problem (eg., a crux in interpretation, developing course syllabus, constructing an effective grant proposal).
- Demonstrations: Participants present on teaching or technological innovations, with explanations and discussion.
- Interview session: Participants give a brief presentation and are then interviewed by the next panelist, who then presents their work.
- Creative writing panel: Discussion based on participants’ creative work.
- Collaborative presentations: Participants present as a group or team (rather than individually).
- Closed-Door Meetings: Participants meet privately in the context of ACCUTE. Such a meeting space can be made available to those who request it, especially for priority and equity-deserving groups.
- Other formats: Members should feel free to imagine and propose an alternate format of scholarly presentation and engagement that would fit within a 90-minute time slot. We are excited to hear your suggestions and encourage innovation in forms
HOW TO SUBMIT A PANEL PROPOSAL OR RELATED INFORMATION
To submit a panel proposal, please email it as a single PDF attachment to Ghislaine Comeau at info.accute@gmail.com with the following information:
- The proposed panel title and format, including the type of proposal (Member-Organized, Creative Writing, or Joint-Sponsored; if Joint-Sponsored indicate the co-sponsored organization)
- Your name, institution, and email address
- The text of the CFP to a maximum of 200 words
- NOTE: If notifying us of a returning panel you do not need to resubmit the original proposal again; just let us know the title of your panel that should appear on next year’s program. And if you’re letting us know that you’re not going ahead with your 2024 panel, please provide us with the title so we can contact the panelists to see if they’d like to be included in next year’s program on another panel.
Deadline: All Panel Proposals and Panel related communications must be received by Friday, 13 September 2024.
If accepted, your CFP will be circulated in September with a deadline for submissions of late November. Submissions will come through the Online Proposal Submission Form on the ACCUTE website, and then be forwarded to panel organizer(s) for first vetting.
Submissions not selected for the panel will go into the General Pool for consideration.
WHAT MAKES A GOOD CFP?
Some CFPs attract many submissions; some, few or none. A successful CFP is neither too general (Ellison’s fiction, problems in poetry) nor too specific (Jungian approaches to “The Pardoner’s Tale”, uses of the first person in experimental maritime autofiction). It identifies an interesting or timely topic or critical problem, or an under-represented area, and reflects current scholarship in that field. Think of the eventual audience as well as the potential submitters: try to pick a topic that is not overly specialized and that has a general or cross-field appeal. Craft the CFP carefully, without issuing too many directives but a generous list of possibilities, and let your submitters show what they can do with it. Finally, be sure to spend some time publicizing the CFP through your networks to the kinds of scholars who would be an asset to the event. We will work to advertise it widely, as well.
We encourage anyone planning a panel to consult ACCUTE’s Equity Statement and to consider how their panel fulfills the ambitions and values it seeks to uphold.
Please contact Ghislaine Comeau at info.accute@gmail.com with any questions. For questions specific to Creative Writing panels, you may contact Adam Dickinson at adickinson@brocku.ca.