Dear BAVS members,

In 2024 BAVS will join other leading Victorian organizations around the world to conduct an experiment in “flightless” conference-going.

You can find a detailed overview here: https://www.event2024.org/conference-overview/

The UK will have five hubs: 1) Stirling, 2) Cardiff, 3) Hawarden, 4) Belfast and 5) Lancaster. Each hub will host independent face-to-face events in September 2024. Papers can be shared through COVE Conferences, a password-protected annotation platform that allows delegates from across the world to read and comment on papers delivered at other hubs. Full details can be found on the EVENT2024 website: https://www.event2024.org/registration/

You can find confirmed participants here: https://www.event2024.org/participants/

Call for Papers: https://www.event2024.org/call-for-papers/

The short of it: traditional academic conferences have become problematic for two main reasons. They incur a massive carbon footprint and because, despite busaries,  they make it difficult for those such as unwaged ECRS and self-funded postgraduate students to participate. Some organizers have attempted to run conferences online; however, most people cannot sit through more than one panel before they need a break from the screen.

We propose a hybrid approach: monthly Zoom panels starting January 2024 followed by a series of face-to-face hub events across the world in September 2024. Pick the hub closest to you! To facilitate substantive interaction across time zones, we will use a new password-protected platform on COVE to share and discuss papers delivered at the Zoom and hub events. This platform will facilitate asynchronous networking in a format that does not require a strong Internet connection, unlike Zoom. You can participate in the conference in any way you wish: just the Zoom panels, just the hubs, just COVE, whatever works best for you.

Our climate and humanities crises compel us to seek out more equitable, sustainable ways of conferencing. We hope you’ll join us in this experiment. We can learn what is possible only by doing, and by working together.

If you have questions or suggestions, do not hesitate to email us.

Be well!

Dino

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Dino Franco Felluga

NAVSA Web Developer