Guatemalan Scholars Network Conference
October 11-12, 2008
Vanderbilt University (Nashville, Tennessee)

The GSN invites you to participate in its first ever Guatemalan Scholars Network Conference to be held 11-12 October 2008 at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee. We plan for the conference to open at noon on Saturday and close early afternoon Sunday.

The purpose of the conference is two-fold. First, to share our recent work and views on the direction of Guatemalan studies (and Guatemala). Second, using this as a basis, to chart a new direction for the GSN as an organization that seeks to contribute to not only scholarly knowledge of Guatemala and the Maya but to positive change as well.

The conference format will be based around roundtables. We think this will be most productive for our current purposes. We do ask everyone who plans to attend to fill out the form below and include a brief abstract or description of topics you would like to see discussed. For the roundtable format, such abstracts are not strictly necessary, and we do want to leave the discussion as open as possible. At the same time, the formality of a title and a panel will allow some members to be
reimbursed for their expenses by their universities. We will organize participants into roundtables based on these responses.

The plan is to have this be a pre-conference for a larger gathering that we will plan to take place in Guatemala during the summer 2009.

The Center for Latin American Studies at Vanderbilt will cover hotel costs and main meals for participants. The number of hotel rooms is limited to 40 room nights, so we ask that if your university will cover all or part of the costs that you have them do that; also we are scheduling the times of the conference so that some may be able to fly in Saturday and leave on Sunday.

For more information, please contact Susan Berger (berger@fordham.edu) or Ted Fischer (edward.f.fischer@vanderbitl.edu).