SCMS Run Down

So great to catch up with all of you at this year’s SCMS conference in Seattle. For those who were not able to join us, either in Seattle or for the business meeting, here’s a run down of what happened:

  • We sponsored a full complement of 8 panels this year, and there were about 10 others with war and conflict-themed topics. In short, it was a banner year with much good material!
At the Business meeting:
  • Becca stepped down. Thank you for your service, Becca!
  • Karen Ritzenhoff stepped up. She will succeed Becca as co-chair (by unanimous vote of acclamation)
  • The essay prize winner was: Jaka Lombar for “Between Trauma and Representation: Film Texture as a Surface of Possibility in Claude Lanzmann’s The Last of the Unjust”
  • Travel prize winners were: Maria Zalewska and Zachary Powell
  • Next year’s travel prize will remain $100 for two awards, but all entrants will compete in one pool regardless of whether they are grad students of underemployed faculty
  • Members voted not to include emeritus faculty as part of the underemployed category for travel award purposes, but please contact the co-chairs if you feel your case merits inclusion. We were empowered to make ad hoc inclusions in compelling instances.
  • Website: If you have works-in-progress or book reviews you’d like to have uploaded to the website, or you have ideas for other uses of the site, let Stacy know.
  • Please volunteer to sit on the Conference Program Committee for SCMS2020. Details can be found here. I suspect we had so many great panels and papers this year because we had some representation on the committee making decision about which abstracts to accept.
Networking for next SCMS:
  1. A panel on Peter Jackson’s WWI documentary They Shall Not Grow Old. Contact John Trafton if you’re interested
  2. A Sunday Seminar focusing on practical matters related to teaching and scholarship in the field of war studies. Contact Anna Froula if you’re interested.
  3. Ideas for events at SCMS 2020 in Denver, CO. Possibilities include special screenings/discussions, museum/archive visits, talks by invited guests/artists, or other? Email Stacy Takacs or Karen Ritzenhoff.

We did not. . . revisit the idea of whether to charge a member’s fee, but said fee could be voluntary (for tenured or tenure track faculty only) and could help us raise the number or the amount of our travel/essay prizes. Something to chew on. We may stage a live facebook discussion later in the year to raise the issue once we have some clarification from the home office on procedures for the fees.

Until then…

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