THE COLLEGE LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION      

www.clascholars.org July 18, 2015 Dear College Language Association Members: It is a renewed pleasure to congratulate you for your outstanding participation in our Association’s last Convention in Dallas, TX, which was held April 8-11, 2015. We appreciate the very enthusiastic and significant attendance of local, national, and international participants who presented relevant papers and discussed their films/documentaries. For this upcoming 76th Convention, “Dialogues Between Africa and the African Diaspora in Languages, Literatures, and Films” in Houston, TX, on April 6-9, 2015, we strongly invite all of you to submit your individual paper, panel, roundtable, and/or workshop abstracts to Dr. Donna Akiba Harper, English Language Representative, at [email protected], and to Dr. Margaret Morris, Foreign Language Representative, at [email protected]. Only the special sessions, i.e. those from the standing committees and the allied organizations (see Call for Abstracts Poster), will be submitted to Dr. Clément Animan Akassi, Vice President and Program Chair, at [email protected]. Every year, we are thrilled to see a growing number of national and international first-time attendees to our convention. New attendees, such as graduate students or junior faculty, are in need of assistance, sometimes. If you are a Dean, Associate Dean, Chair or Assistant Chair, please help granting them some travel funds in order to defer expenses to attend the CLA Convention. In addition to your eventual volunteer effort, we are pleased to announce also the first Call for Applications for the First-Time Attendee Membership and Registration Fee Waivers (see the attached document). We are encouraging graduate students, junior faculty and colleagues from abroad to apply. This year, you are invited to submit your abstract for presentation, before or by September 15, 2015. It should include the following data: title of regular session, or special session; abstract of regular session, or special session; first and last names of chair, co-chair and/or respondent (if necessary), and all presenters; affiliation and email address of chair, co-chair, respondent, and all presenters. You are asked also to indicate if you need A/V equipment when submitting your abstracts. No exceptions will be granted regarding the A/V equipment’s request deadline. This year again, we will post a translated Call for Abstracts in French and Spanish, which will be available on our website at: www.clasholars.org. Translations in Portuguese and German, among others, are underway as well. Please, feel free to share the Call for Abstracts with colleagues, students, and friends. Sincerely, Clement A. Akassi Clément Animan Akassi, Ph.D. CLA Vice President and Program Chair 2014-16 Associate Professor Howard University

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