The deadline for the SSPP 2009 is November 16, 2008. Consider submitting a paper or a symposium proposal.
To submit a symposium proposal, the main thing you need are three or so willing participants, their contact information, and abstracts of the proposed papers.
As I pointed out before, both the venue (Savannah, GA) and the invited program are quite attractive.
If you have any questions about submissions, feel free to contact me.
The SSPP is going to conflict with the Pacific APA again this year, is that right? Very unfortunate – is there anything you can do about this as the organizer, Gualtiero? If not for this time, then the next? I’m sure there are a lot of people, like me, who would like to attend both.
I feel the same way, but I didn’t set the date. I believe that starting next year, the SSPP will make sure the SSPP does not conflict with the Pacific APA. That being said, if I were working in philosophy of mind/psych/neuroscience, I’d choose the SSPP over the Pacific APA.
Well, you might be right about the relative merits of the SSPP and the APA for a Brains reader, but since the APA will be a short drive away while the SSPP is across the continent, I think it’ll be the APA for me this year. Apologies! 🙂
Yes, we are working on the dates for the SSPP for 2010. The problem is that both the APA and the SSPP apparently want to get good hotels rates and hotels give better rates on Easter weekend, so both move to Easter weekends. (APA is only usually Easter, SSPP has always been easter for the last 15 years or so.) It’s tougher for the SSPP to move off that good rate date, since we are smaller and our finances were precarious a few years ago. Another problem is that the APA does not always post its date before the SSPP makes its decision. It’s surprisingly complicated.
I suppose the sensible thing would be for two societies to get together on this. The APA could always be on the Easter weekend (since the larger meeting will save more money), but in turn, the APA could contribute some of that savings to the SSPP, in order to offset the SSPP’s increased cost. Both would then be better meetings. Of course, the sensible thing rarely happens, it seems! Is the APA willing to play ball?
That would be awfully generous of the APA, but I didn’t get the sense that the APA person I contacted cared at all. And they seem to have a more leisurely planning schedule than we do. We’ll probably have our 2010 date and hotel in 2008.
I think that moving to the first non-Easter weekend in April will usually work for the SSPP, but the APA has held a meeting within that time frame, I think in the last five years. So, we are looking at April 8-10, 2010. I thought we would have had the 2010 date and hotel nailed down two months ago, but the hotel has been ineplicably slow.
But, I think our registration fee will go up. Ten years ago, the SSPP didn’t have a registration fee. About four years ago it went to $15. Now it’s $25. I think it will move to $45 or $50. And, we may think about having a conference banquet. That generates money for the hotel and helps keep room rates and meeting room space prices lower. But, the SSPP has changed a lot in the past two or three years and could change somewhat more in the next three or four.
I think your strategy (first non-Easter weekend, raising the registration fee, & a banquet) sounds good. Then if you notify the APA, it’s up to them to steer clear of that date. I guess we’ll see if they care!