Message from IASIL Chair: 2021 Conference

Dear IASIL members, friends and colleagues,

I hope that you are all safe, healthy and in reasonably good spirits still in these troubled times.

I’m afraid that I need to announce the difficult but inevitable decision that this year’s conference, hosted by our colleagues at the University of Łódź, is going to be run as a fully online event.

While we have all been looking forward to finally being able to meet in person again, the current state of the global pandemic and the related restrictions make going online the only responsible solution.

I would like to express my gratitude to the Executive for endorsing my proposal that IASIL steps in to cover part of the conference costs; this will allow for the registration fee to be kept at token level, and to waive the fee for students, early career scholars and the unsalaried. As the budget of the Association is limited, I would like to appeal on any of you who may be in a position to do so to kindly avail of the option to donate towards the honoraria of the participating artists, which will be made available at registration.

In order to accommodate those who have not submitted an abstract due to the ongoing uncertainty about travel, the deadline has been extended one more time, to 30 April. Moreover, the format of the conference has allowed for the PhD Forum to be expanded, catering for more of our student members. Further details are available on the conference website, iasil.uni.lodz.pl.

I would like to thank the conference organisers at Łódź for their relentless dedication to making the conference happen, and the amount of energy and effort that they have invested in the event over the last couple of years and more. IASIL Łódź promises to be a wonderful and exciting event, regardless of the fact that we’ll see one another on our screens only; perhaps, we will meet in greater numbers than we had expected!

I look forward to seeing you in July, and stay safe.

Ondrej Pilny