IABA Business Meeting Minutes, 30 July 2006, Mainz

Note by Tom Smith (Penn State Abington)

I. Listserve and 2008 IABA Conference

Craig Howes (Hawaii Manoa) said that the purpose of the IABA listserv is communication and noted that there are 500 members on the IABA Listserv. For the topic of the 2008 IABA Conference he'll be hosting in Hawaii, he wants to focus on language and involve a number of different languages in the conference. He welcomes ideas on how best to do that. Also, he wants to involve all institutes, centers, and presses involved in auto/biography in the conference, to build into the conference knowledge of all worldwide groups interested in the field. One specific idea he has is to have multilingual, concept-oriented sessions, with computerized translations. Translation might be the topic of such a session. Another way to incorporate many languages into the conference is to announce the sessions early and then collect, translate, and distribute the papers early, so that they won't need to be read at the session but, rather, discussed. The papers might also be put on a website before the conference, with attendees expected to have read them before the conference. Craig is also interested in having dance, song, and other nontextual means of communication featured as part of the conference.

II. Mainz Conference and 2010 IABA Conference

Alfred Hornung discussed the financing of the Mainz conference. He originally proposed a 40,000 Euro budget, but was given 20,000 Euros and raised 10,000 Euros himself. That 30,000 Euro figure includes the money raised from conference registration fees. Much of the budget was used to fund travel by presenters from Asia and Africa and securing plenary speakers, equipment, and the program.

He then turned to the 2010 conference. While Morocco is a possible conference site in the future, South Africa is the likely site for 2010. IABA members from South Africa will begin working on conference plans. (Perhaps they can share those plans in Hawaii in 2008). Also, after the meeting, Margaretta Jolly (Exeter) offered to consider hosting the conference at Exeter in 2010 or later.

III. Mainz Reforms

Zhao Baisheng (Peking) discussed the "Mainz reforms," reviewing IABA activities over the last seven years. He felt that organizers of past conferences should be recognized and noted that he funds the IABA website in Beijing out of his own research funds, in the amount of 4860 yuan. * He mentioned IABA's presence in the International Yearbook of Organizations and IABA-associated publications stemming from conferences in Vancouver, Melbourne, Hong Kong, and Beijing (some papers from which conference have been translated into Chinese and published in China). He also mentioned conference reports by Margaretta Jolly and Tom Smith in journals and websites. Zhao Baisheng would like more people to be involved in the website (specifically, someone to answer questions posed by website users through a "contact us" feature); prizes established for excellent scholarship in the field of auto/biography studies or, if possible, for autobiographies and biographies; more publications; fundraising for conferences; long-term planning; an annual report; coordination of the biennial meeting; the creation of a constitution; and the establishment of an IABA archive. (In order to perform these functions properly and efficiently, he suggests that an executive body of officers for a term of one year or two years should be established. Before the IABA business meeting, he emailed to members of Organizing Committee and three organizers of previous IABA conferences a proposal entitled "Mainz Reform", consisting mainly of three parts: practical working team, publications and prizes.)

IV. Discussions:

Alfred Hornung proposed that the organizers of IABA-sponsored conferences should be added to the Organizing Committee. Thus far, that includes Susanna Egan (Vancouver), Richard Freadman (Melbourne), and David Parker (Hong Kong). The expanded Organizing Committee will remain in place until 2008, when a system of rotation will be established so that new members may be added and old members may retire. Discussion supported this proposal. (In October, 2006, Alfred emailed the Organizing Committee to say that he has transferred 500 Euros to Zhao Baisheng for the maintenance of the website from the money reserved for the publication of the conference volume(s). He hopes that he has enough leeway in the negotiation with Winter Verlag, the planned publisher of the conference volume(s). He also suggests that IABA might establish a set sum to be recruited from the registration fees at future conferences to help maintain the website.)

Tom Smith (Penn State Abington) suggested that the conference registration fee could include funds to support prizes for conference papers. Susanna Egan (Vancouver) said that high registration fees make it hard for graduate students to attend. Becky Hogan (Wisconsin Whitewater) said that donations could be requested from registrants. Craig Howes said that recognition rather than a cash prize should be sufficient. He also suggested that a differential registration fee could be created for the Hawaii conference, graduate students paying less than regularly employed faculty. He also expects that accommodations will include dormitories, thus reducing costs.

Stephan Mayer (Basel) suggested that some people, junior scholars particularly, might need and appreciate a cash prize. He suggested it could be given at a conference to people giving excellent papers at that conference. The papers would have to be submitted beforehand.

Margaretta Jolly and Julie Rak (Alberta) said that there are problems with prizes, some of which are lots of work for judges and bad submissions. Richard Freadman said he likes the simplicity of the conferences we've had up to this point. Tom Smith said he liked the idea of archiving IABA material. Margaretta also said that the IABA is organized largely around and through the conferences, with the listserv as the connecting presence. She appreciates this very much as a very simple form of maintaining the group, and one that inherently involves a rotation or responsibility and power. She also pointed out that there is no hidden business involved in being on the organizing committee, but she appreciates that it can help to have one's name there and is happy to have hers taken off and replaced by others in turn.

Alfred Hornung said that he plans two volumes of conference proceedings with up to 40 presentations. One volume will concern media issues, the second the mediation of culture in auto/biography. He expects that the publisher will be Winter Verlag, possibly with distribution by Palgrave/Macmillan.

Julia Watson said that one member of the Organizing Committee shouldn't bear the cost of the website. Alfred Horning said that 500 Euros could be raised from conference registrations. Susanna Egan suggested that a membership fee could be instituted for IABA. Craig Howes said that such a fee would cause the listserv to lose members. A participant whose name Tom Smith unfortunately did not record suggested that membership could be tied to appearance on the program at an IABA conference. Julia also spoke strongly in favor of keeping the IABA informal, democratic, and without membership fees. She argued that this openness and accessibility was part of what distinguished it from other formalized, bureaucratic groups and made it intellectually focused.

Kay Schaffer (Adelaide) suggested that the Organizing Committee should include younger people. Julia Watson suggested that the people from Vienna should be on the Organizing Committee. Alfred Hornung said that a scan of the registrants for the Mainz conference showed 175 registered, many of whom were younger scholars. He extended his thanks to all who attended. Becky Hogan led the group in thanking Alfred and all those involved in the conference for all their work.

In a short discussion of prizes at the end of the meeting, it was suggested that donations to the conference could fund travel for younger scholars, the prizes could be offered to younger scholars. Also, it was suggested that for papers to be considered for prizes, authors would have to register for the conference and read their papers. People with experience with the MESEA (MELUS-E) conferences said that at a recent conference, 2 prizes were given out of 12 papers considered.

At that point, the meeting ended.