Dear Friends and Colleagues,
We are very pleased to share with you the Preliminary Program Schedule for our 39th Annual Meeting, which will take place in Seattle on October 2-5.
We are creating an extraordinary conference for you this year. We are planning on more than doubling last year’s attendance and introducing you to an impressive international lineup of distinguished keynote and plenary speakers.
Our Westin Seattle Hotel venue, located in the heart of beautiful downtown Seattle, will provide us with a private, dedicated wing for all our concurrent sessions and exhibits. You will be greeted by an SSA Hosting Team that will be available throughout the conference to answer your questions about the program and nearby attractions.
In addition, here are just some of the highlights from the wonderful new initiatives we have in store for you:
- A pre-conference courtesy room-share board, which will help to connect participants who would like to defray costs by sharing a hotel room.
- A creative process to generate topics for seminars and workshops that will be facilitated by world-renowned semioticians.
- A “Rising Stars” mentorship program, which will help to pair interested graduate student and junior faculty attendees with a volunteer expert scholar for one year.
- An exhibit room featuring artwork, poster presentations, books and journal displays, and information on semiotics initiatives.
- Special mealtime entertainment, including memorable concert and dance performances.
- A revealing of our vision for the SSA and semiotics in the year ahead, as well as a sneak peek at what’s in store for our anniversary 40th Annual Meeting next year.
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Photo courtesy of Tillicum Village, Blake Island An extraordinary conference-end tour that will take participants on a cruise to Tillicum Village on Blake Island, the legendary birthplace of Chief Seattle. In addition to the stunning Pacific Northwest landscape, participants will enjoy a traditional baked salmon lunch and a Native American performance.
We hope that you are as excited as we are about this great opportunity to network, meet old friends, share our scholarly work, and continue to envision a productive future for semiotics together.
We encourage you to submit your abstracts as soon as possible, and no later than the extended deadline of June 20.
Finally, please share our conference page with any colleagues and students who might be interested in joining us: http://semioticsocietyofamerica.org/2014-annual-meeting/
Thank you and we look forward to seeing you in Seattle!
Farouk Seif
On behalf of the 2014 SSA Program Committee