The COMELA 2020 - The (Annual) Conference on Mediterranean and European Linguistic Anthropology 2020

Information

Following the growth of the COMELA, The Conference on Mediterranean and European Linguistic Anthropology, we announce The COMELA 2020, September 2-5, 2020, at The American College of Greece, Athens, Greece.

The COMELA seeks to redefine scholarship on Mediterranean and European Language and Society.

Purpose and Structure

The COMELA 2020 invites academics in the fields of Linguistics, Anthropology, Linguistic and Cultural Anthropology, and Ethnology, pertinent to The Mediterranean and Europe, to discuss work, and engage in scholarly collaborations, thus strengthening global academic networks in the field.

Location

American College of Greece
Athens, Greece

Partners

• Taylor and Francis Global Publishers (Official Publishing Partner)
• 120 major academic institutions globally
• Scientific Committee of over 120 academics

Publications

Journal Special Issues, and Monographs, from papers submitted that meet publication requirements. Papers selected will be published with Top-Tier journals. Here, ample assistance will be provided to revise manuscripts.

All COMELA Conference proceedings will be SCOPUS published.

Dates

Abstract and poster proposal submission - June 1, 2019 - November 15, 2019

Notification of acceptance - No later than December 30, 2019 (for those submitted prior to this)

Registration

Early bird - October 30, 2019 - January 21, 2020

Normal bird - January 22, 2020 - April 25, 2020

Presenters must register by April 25, 2020, to guarantee a place in the program. Registration will remain open after this, but conference organizers cannot guarantee placement in the conference.

Late bird - April 26, 2020 - September 5, 2020 (Conference end)

Conference dates

Wednesday September 2, 2020 - Saturday September 5, 2020

Final day comprises optional Anthropological excursion (separate cost)

Abstract submissions

The Call for Abstracts opens on June 1, 2019, at comela2020. acg. edu, which contains all information

 

Anthropological Excursion

Several options
Attica, Greece

Theme

Bounded Languages ... Unbounded

Politics of identity are central to language change. Here, linguistic boundaries rise and fall, motivating the ephemeral characteristics of language communities. The Mediterranean and European region is one replete with histories, with power struggles, uniquely demarcating nation, ethnicity, and community. For this, cultural and political identities, language ideologies, as well as the languages themselves, have sought boundedness, dynamics of which have indeed sought change over eons, through demographic movements, through geopolitics, through technological innovation. In a current era of technological advancement, transnational fluidity, intellectual power, capitalism, and new sexualities, then, we question, once again, the boundedness of language and identity, and ways in which to unbound languages and ideologies. More than before, we now increasingly pursue anthropological toil, so to innovate ways to locate these ideologies and their fluid boundaries, actively. We now need to increasingly unbind these languages, and their ideologies, so to arrive at progressive realizations, and to rectify, or at least see and move past, the segregations of old.   The COMELA 2020 theme, “Bounded languages… Unbounded”, encapsulates the ongoing struggle throughout Mediterranean and European regions. As the continuous tension between demarcation, and the concurrent legitimization, of languages, language ideologies, and language identities, enters an era where new modes of interactivity require language communities to take on roles super-ordinate to the past, flexible citizenship now operates within, and not only across, language communities, to unbind languages, and to create new boundaries, unlike those ever seen throughout history.   The COMELA 2020 invites work which addresses the shifting boundedness of Language Communities of the Mediterranean and Europe. Papers and posters should acknowledge and describe processes of language shape, change, and ideology, pertinent to social, cultural, political histories, and futures of Mediterranean and European regions, and by those working in Mediterranean and European regions.   Strands

Abstract and poster proposals should address one or more of the key strands related to Mediterranean and European countries and regions:

 

• Anthropological Linguistics
• Applied Sociolinguistics
• Buddhist studies and discourses
• Cognitive Anthropology and Language
• Critical Linguistic Anthropology
• Ethnographical Language Work
• Ethnography of Communication
• General Sociolinguistics
• Islamic Studies and discourses
• Language, Community, Ethnicity
• Language Contact and Change
• Language, Dialect, Sociolect, Genre
• Language Documentation
• Language, Gender, Sexuality
• Language Ideologies
• Language Minorities and Majorities
• Language Revitalization
• Language in Real and Virtual Spaces
• Language Socialization
• Language and Spatiotemporal Frames
• Multi functionality
• Narrative and Meta narrative
• Nonverbal Semiotics
• Poetics
• Post-Structuralism and Language
• Semiotics and Semiology
• Social Psychology of Language
• Text, Context, Entextualization

 

Presentation lengths

• Colloquia – 1.5 hours with 3-5 contributors (Parts A and B are possible, thus 6-10 contributors)
• General paper sessions – Approx. 20-25 minutes each, including 5 mins for questions/responses
• Posters – to be displayed at designated times throughout the COMELA 2020

Submission Guidelines (via the online submission website, or by email (see below))

General session papers

• • 18-word maximum title

• 400-word maximum abstract, including references

Colloquia

• Submission of only the main abstract for colloquium required
• Abstract must contain the colloquium main description, and a summary of each individual paper within the colloquium

Evaluation of proposals

• All abstracts for general sessions will be double blind reviewed.
• Main parent abstracts for colloquia will be double blind reviewed. All abstracts for individual presentations within each colloquia will not be peer reviewed, but are expected to be at a standard commensurate to the colloquium parent abstract.

Review of criteria are as follows:

 

• Appropriateness and significance to COMELA themes
• Originality/significance/impact of the research
• Clarity/coherence of research concerns
• Theoretical and analytical framework(s)
• Description of research, data collection, findings/conclusions, rhetoric, and exegesis as a whole
• For colloquia, importance/significance of the overarching topic and/or framework(s) addressed, and its coherence of and with individual presentations.

For more information, please contact:

Chair

Professor Helena Maragou

Helena P. Maragou, PhD  

Dean, School of Liberal Arts and Sciences

The American College of Greece

 

Head of Communications

Ms. Nhan Huynh