The ISSS Board and the Paris conference organizing committee are writing to let you know that the 3rd annual ISSS annual conference, originally scheduled for November 2020, has been postponed until fall 2021. This decision was a very difficult one to make. However, based on the continuing evolution of the COVID-19 pandemic—and keeping the safety, as well as the institutional and financial circumstances, of our membership in mind‚ we agreed that this was a necessary decision.
Our Paris conference hosts— Olivier Penot-Lacassagne, Iveta Slavkova, Fabrice Flahutez, and Julia Drost—have worked together brilliantly to envision a multi-institutional, interdisciplinary, and internationally-minded conference in Paris, and the ISSS board is excited to continue working with them to make the Paris conference a success in a year’s time, in fall 2021. We will update our membership when we schedule a new date, and will subsequently renew the call for papers. If you have already submitted a proposal, we apologize for the inconvenience and look especially forward to revisiting your work in the very near future.
In spite of this sad but necessary change in schedule, the study of surrealism continues to evolve and strengthen, even during these difficult times. Numerous museum exhibitions, book publications, and other celebrations have been appearing and are in the works; and new surrealism-related projects (such as The Debutante) continue to launch and sustain their artistic, scholarly, and political programs. This is an exciting—and indeed, a necessary—moment for the continued and renewed attention to surrealism worldwide.
In this regard, the ISSS likewise continues to grow and develop, in spite of the pandemic. We are in the process of finalizing details about a new ISSS journal and book series. We will hold an election for Vice-President for ISSS next month, and we will be launching a fundraiser (with original art) to support future travel to ISSS events by students, independent artists, and non-tenure track faculty. We thus hope you will stay in contact, and, if you are in a position to do so, consider renewing your membership to the ISSS.
Thank you, and with very best wishes,
Jonathan Eburne
on behalf of the ISSS Board:
Susan Aberth
Jason Earle
Jonathan Eburne
Andrea Gremels
Claire Howard
Elliott King
Sean Mooney
Melanie Nicholson
Effie Rentzou
Abigail Susik
Pierre Taminiaux
surrealismstudies.org 