NEWSLETTER
June 2013
Dear Colleagues,
The spring semester of 2012/2013 is coming to an end and the prospect of holidays away
from at least some of our university obligations makes us feel more positive about the world
and our lives. It is also the time to report on our Association´s activities over the past months,
of which the 22nd Annual Conference of PASE was certainly the most important. We would
like to share with those of our Colleagues who were not able to attend the conference some
information about and comments on this event.
The 22nd Annual PASE Conference was organised by the Institute of English Studies,
University of Warsaw and took place in Centrum Bankowo-Finansowe "Nowy Świat", Nowy
Świat 6/12, Warsaw, the notorious headquarters of the Polish communist party, PZPR, which
certainly proved to be a place of interest to young and foreign participants in the conference.
The theme of the conference Face to Face. Page to Page was inspired as the organisers tell
us “by the Bakhtinian understanding of language, literature and culture, which together
constitute a space of dialogue, allowing every kind of individual, “subjective” and isolated
experience to receive full-fledged expression”. The plenary sessions this year attracted full
rooms of conference participants. We listened to two plenary speakers: Prof. Randall
Stevenson (University of Edinburgh) who talked on “Hoarse Oaths that Kept our Courage
Straight: Voice, Vernacular and the Language of the First World War” and Prof. David
Malcolm (University of Gdańsk) “The Technical Means. On the Phonosemantic Analysis of
Poetry”. The individual sessions we participated in were multidisciplinary and focused on
scholarly discussions and empirical studies in literature, culture and linguistic sciences
organized in varied sessions such as those on drama, poetry, medieval studies, neo-victorians,
contemporary novel, culture in dialogue, popular culture, fantasy worlds, literary theory,
language and politics for literature and culture scholars; whereas linguists from various fields
met in sessions on linguistics, sociolinguistics and cognitive linguistics, language acquisition
and ELT, and translation studies. The content of the conference was enriched by the
presentation of a scholarly database by Mr Krzysztof Murawski (ProQuest). On the evening
of the second day, a UW students´ theatrical company Cheerful Hamlets entertained us with a
performance of selected scenes form Oscar Wilde´s The Importance of Being Earnest, which
was enthusiastically received by the audience. A well-organised conference dinner was the
occasion to thank the Organisers and talk informally with our Colleagues from different
English departments, which was an agreeable social occasion in our otherwise busy academic
lives.
Here is some statistical data on this year´s conference: the number of registered participants
was initially 162, out of which 132 actually attended the event. A high percentage of the
participants (73 participants) were not PASE members, but we hope that the success of the
conference will contribute to the expanded membership of the Association. A large number
of abstracts papers submitted for evaluation (147), resulted in the end in 120 presentations
given, the difference being mainly due to cancellations. The Organisers also provided us with
statistical data concerning the academic status of individual participants; we learn that 22
presentations were given by professors, 43 by doctors and 55 by our younger colleagues,
Ph.D. students and M.A. lecturers. These numbers are very promising for the future of
English studies as they demonstrate the clear interest of a young generation of academics in
doing research and developing their academic careers. And perhaps many of them who
haven´t yet joined the Association will do so now.
The success of the conference is due in no small part to the hard work of the Organizing
Committee of three people: prof. dr hab. Małgorzata Grzegorzewska, dr Dorota Babilas, and
dr Paweł Rutkowski, and their numerous student-assistants, who took good care of us, the
participants, dealing with numerous requests and enquiries. All these people made this a truly
memorable academic and social occasion for us all. And so, once again, many thanks.
This year´s PASE Conference is the first which, with the view to developing Association´s
future by promoting young scholars, was able to announce the PASE Board’s decision to
award a prize for the best young scholar, which will be awarded for the best paper presented
at the conference.
The Polish Association for the Study of English Young Scholars’ Award 2013 is connected
with the annual PASE conference and is granted for the best paper presented by a young
scholar during the annual conference. The competition is an attempt to recognize and
encourage scholarship by young scholars. The Jury is nominated by the Board of PASE and
includes both members of the Board and some external reviewers. The Jury decides between
the papers on the basis of their quality. The results of the competition – the winner and the
finalists – will be announced by PASE Board on the PASE Homepage. The competition is
open to PhD students and scholars who must be less than 35 years old in the year of the
conference. The applicant should also be the only author of the original paper submitted for
the award. By “original” we mean that the paper has not been either published or presented
at another conference. Previous award winners are also not allowed to re-enter the
competition. Applications, and full papers of the length required by the conference
Organizing Committee, must reach the PASE Secretary Elżbieta Foltyńska by June 30 in
electronic form (an MS Word file) and should be submitted to zarzadpase@wp.pl. In the
subject line of the e-mail applicants should include the word PASE YSA and field of study:
English Literature, American Literature, Culture, General Linguistics, Applied Linguistics,
Translation Studies. In a separate attachment, please include: name of the author, age,
affiliation and academic rank, name of supervisor if applicable, paper title, e-mail address
and snail post address. The PASE Board will decide about the value and form of the Award
for the following year during its meeting in October. The successful applicant in 2013 will
receive a certificate and financial support of 1500 PLN.
Additional information for PASE members.
The PASE fee: The Board accepted the proposal of PASE Secretary, Ms. Elżbieta Foltyńska,
concerning the deadline for PASE annual fee. It was decided that from 2014, it will be the 1st
of March (and not the 31st March as it has been until now). This decision is related with the
deadline for the fee that our Association has to transfer to ESSE, which is the 15th of March.
PASE publications:
The PASE 2012 volume (the post-Krakow conference proceedings) on linguistics and
language will soon be published, whereas the publication of the literature and culture studies
is not ready yet and is still in the process of reviewing the submissions. Prof. Mirosław
Pawlak, the Editor of the series in Springer Verlag, informed us that PASE 2011 volume (the
Toruń conference) will also come out soon.
PASE 2014:
The next annual conference of our Association will take place in Lublin and will be
organized by the Institute of English of UMCS. The proposed dates of the conference are 7-9
April 2014, however both the time and theme will be finalized during the Board meeting in
October 2013. The conference venue has already been provisionally chosen and it will be a
brand new high class conference center – AGIT Congress & SPA in Lublin, which is about to
be opened.
Although we are coming to the end of the semester, a lot of work is still ahead of us:
examinations and juries among other duties, let me wish you now in the name of the PASE
Board, good and reviving holidays, hopefully not taken up by the work we did not manage to
complete during the teaching year.
Enjoy your break!
Danuta Gabryś-Barker
(on behalf of the PASE Board)