Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association

As of July 2010, the Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association (PAMLA) had over five hundred paid members and a strong financial balance sheet, testament to the long-term health of PAMLA and the feelings of warmth and good will that so many PAMLA members feel toward the association. PAMLA membership remains one of the great scholarly deals available, with dues being truly reasonable: $35 for regular members; $25 for lecturers; $20 for students, emeriti, and the un(der)employed; and $50 for joint memberships. We also have a three-year membership option for $90 and a lifetime membership option for $380. Benefits of membership include a subscription to Pacific Coast Philology (PCP), a subscription to our newsletter, and access to the PAMLA e-mail discussion list. Membership is required to present a paper at the annual conference or to publish an essay in PCP. By reciprocal agreement, regular NEMLA and PAMLA members may participate in the meetings of both associations.

The 2009 PAMLA Conference was held at San Francisco State University from 6 to 7 November and was sponsored by the College of Humanities of San Francisco State University and cosponsored by Mills College. With over 111 sessions, a fascinating Presidential Address by Beverly Voloshin (San Francisco State Univ.), and a memorable Plenary Address entitled “Counter Histories, Alternate Histories, and Fictions” by Catherine Gallagher (Univ. of California, Berkeley), the conference was quite successful indeed, largely due to the terrific work of the site committee chaired by Emily Merriman and Bérénice Le Marchand.

This year’s 108th Annual PAMLA Conference is being held at Chaminade University in Honolulu, Hawai‘i, 13–14 November 2010. Not only is this PAMLA’s first conference in Hawai‘i, it will also be a significantly larger conference than any we have had in the recent past, with over 130 sessions and five hundred participants scheduled to attend. Some of the conference highlights will undoubtedly include the Presidential Address by Thierry Boucquey (Scripps Coll.), the Plenary Address by Eric Haskell (Scripps Coll.), and a number of creative writing sessions. In addition to many standing and special sessions on a wide variety of scholarly topics, we will be hosting a number of sessions on the special topic Picturing Oceania and the Pacific. Those interested in finding out more about the conference should visit our conference Web site: http://www.pamla.org/2010. The 109th Annual PAMLA Conference will be held at Scripps College in Claremont, California, in November 2011.

Lorely French and Pauline Beard, Pacific Coast Philology’s coeditors, stepped down from their wonderful tenure in November 2010 after having served PAMLA magnificently. Roswitha Burwick and Friederike von Schwerin have taken over as PCP’s new coeditors. PCP policy allows members to submit articles year-round for consideration. Articles should be 15–25 pages in length, follow MLA style, and be submitted in triplicate to the general editors (Roswitha Burwick and Friederike von Schwerin, PCP Editors, Dept. of German, 1030 Columbia Ave., Scripps Coll., Claremont, CA 91711). You may also e-mail the editors at pcp@pamla.org. For publication in the fall annual issue, articles should be submitted by 15 January of the year of publication. Articles should be in English. The author’s name should appear only on the cover sheet. Sixty institutions subscribe to PCP, which is also available on the JSTOR database.

At the 2009 Executive Committee meeting in San Francisco, California, the audit committee approved the 2008–09 financial report. The closing balance demonstrated a significant increase from the previous year. In 2009 members donated $1,281 to the Graduate Student Scholarship Fund, and seventeen graduate students received scholarships of varying amounts.

PAMLA officers for 2010 are: President, Thierry Boucquey (Scripps Coll.); First Vice President, Sabine Wilke (Univ. of Washington); Second Vice President, Ana María Rodríguez-Vivaldi (Washington State Univ.); Pacific Coast Philology Editors, Pauline Beard and Lorely French (Pacific Univ.) (to be replaced by Roswitha Burwick and Friederike von Schwerin, Scripps Coll., in late 2010); and Executive Director, Craig Svonkin (Metropolitan State Coll. of Denver). Members of the Executive Committee are Stanley Orr (Univ. of Hawai‘i, West O‘ahu), Catherine Montfort (Santa Clara Univ.), Sophie Delahaye (Washburn Univ.), Jeremiah Axelrod (Occidental Coll.), and Jeffrey Gray (Seton Hall Univ.). The Graduate Student Representative is Lorenzo Giachetti (Stanford Univ.). The Nominating Committee for 2010 is Beverly Voloshin, Chair (San Francisco State Univ.), Imke Meyer (Bryn Mawr Coll.), and Kathleen Lundeen (Western Washington Univ.).

The Pacific Ancient and Modern Language Association is truly in great health for an organization that is one hundred and eleven years old! That the association continues to prosper and grow is entirely due to the hard work and dedication of so many of its members and longtime leaders. I am truly honored to serve as PAMLA’s Executive Director, and I hope that you will consider joining PAMLA, an academic association of incredible warmth, support, and intellectual vigor.

CRAIG SVONKIN
Executive Director