On the conference topic, I've just emerged from two weekends of the annual ASEEES conference (normally just one weekend, but on Zoom it was spread out to avoid complete Zoom fatigue) and one day of hosting our annual regional Riess undergraduate art history symposium. I enjoyed both, and am so proud of my four students who participated in Riess (two with papers from my American art class, two with Renaissance topics mentored by my colleague Dr. Caroline Hillard).
At ASEEES, I gave a paper myself on the Czech surrealists' struggles with other leftists during the 1930s (you can read more about this topic in Magnetic Woman) and presided over the annual membership meeting of the Czechoslovak Studies Association. The CSA has had a bit of a rough year along with everyone else, and we gave members a dues holiday for 2020, but we look forward to getting back to our normal level of activity (or better than that, we hope) and are instituting a new prize. Currently members can compete for a biannual book prize and a biannual article prize (alternating years), and now we will be offering an annual essay prize for undergraduate students writing on Czech/Czechoslovak topics. That includes topics involving Roma or Germans or Hungarians or Jews in the territory of the former Czechoslovakia. Or, for that matter, Vietnamese in the current Czech Republic. Geography defines our prizes, not ethnicity.
Magnetic Woman was to launch early this month at ASEEES, but with the conference being via Zoom, and physical copies not yet having arrived from the printer, this did not happen. Normally the press would have displayed cover art and maybe a printout, and taken orders if the copies had not arrived on time. Ah well... We currently expect copies near the end of the month.
But, of course, you can order your copy (or ask your library to order one) right now and it should arrive in the very near future!
I hope everyone has a pleasant, but most importantly a safe, Thanksgiving. (Well, that's in the US. Canada has an earlier Thanksgiving and the holiday is not to my knowledge held elsewhere except among expats.)
