Dear SNAP members,
I’d like to begin this update by wishing everyone well and by welcoming the new members who have joined since my last update in the spring. We look forward to learning more about your interests and work.
PROJECTS: SNAP celebrated its second anniversary in July 2012, and in a little more than two years our members have collaborated on panels at conferences, a symposium, and two special issues of journals. I’m pleased to report that the Medieval Encounters special issue is currently undergoing external review and the Journal of North African Studies special issue is in the editing stage.
LEADERSHIP RENEWAL: While the Executive Board has been organizing and coordinating projects, we have also been thinking hard about SNAP’s future as an organization over the past few months. We would like to share with you our plan for leadership renewal. The original Executive Board, which was constituted in 2010 through a vote by the founding members of SNAP, will serve another three years until 2015. These three years represent the staggered establishment of what will be regular three-year terms. At the end of these three years in 2015, the Director (me) and one member of the Board will step down and both will be replaced at that time by two newly-elected officers, each serving regular three-year terms. In 2016, another original member of the Executive Board will step down, replaced by a newly-elected officer serving a regular three-year term. And in 2017, the last original member of the Executive Board will step down, replaced by a newly-elected officer serving a regular three-year term. In 2018, the cycle will begin anew, with elections for a new Director and a new Board member. Staggered elections for the Board will ensure that the SNAP leadership maintains continuity of experience. Members who have participated at a SNAP event (2010 NEH Summer Institute, panels, symposia, publications, etc.) will be eligible to stand for election to serve as Executive Director. All members of SNAP are eligible to stand for election to serve as a Board member. In the near-term future, the Executive Board will compose bylaws that will spell out this and other structural processes of SNAP. SNAP’s sustainability relies on your participation, so we encourage you to get involved!
WEBSITE: Continuing to enhance the functionality of the SNAP website, we will soon be adding a “Links” page that lists a number of academic and cultural organizations/institutions around the world that may interest members. This list is not exhaustive, and members are encouraged to send us information on others that might be of relevance (especially in North Africa and Europe). In addition, please invite interested colleagues to join SNAP by directing them to the membership form that will now be embedded in the “Contacts” page.
2013 SYMPOSIUM: Though we have only begun preliminary planning, the Executive Board, with the collaboration of other members, seeks to organize a symposium in 2013. Modeled after the one that Lourdes Alvarez hosted at Catholic University of America in November 2011, the 2013 symposium will bring together SNAP members to present, workshop, and discuss their work. Please stay tuned for more information. We welcome ideas (for themes, panels, other activities) as well as offers of assistance.
TALIM: Gerald Loftus, Director of the Tangier American Legation Institute for Moroccan Studies, graciously extends his invitation to SNAP scholars to visit TALIM, make use of its library and archive, connect with other scholars, and give talks on their research. For more information on TALIM, visit http://aimsnorthafrica.org/ORC/talm.cfm?menu=4 and http://www.talimblog.org/ For information on other AIMS research centers in Oran and Tunis, visit http://aimsnorthafrica.org
I am so pleased that members are using the Google group listserv to share information; announce publications, calls for papers, conferences, and publications; and circulate job ads. I am adding information on additional publications below.
Sincerely,
Gen
Barbara Fuchs and Yuen-Gen Liang, eds., “The Forgotten Empire: The Spanish-North African Borderlands,” a special issue of the Journal of Spanish Cultural Studies 12, no. 3 (2011). Though not technically a SNAP project (it was conceived before the foundation of SNAP), contributors to the special issue are founders or became members of SNAP.
Andrew Devereux, “North Africa in Early Modern Spanish Political Thought,” JSCS 12, no. 3 (2011): 275-291.
Miguel Martínez, “‘The Spell of National Identity’: War and Soldiering on the North African Frontier (1550-1560),” JSCS 12, no. 3 (2011): 293-307.
Jocelyn Hendrickson, “Muslim Legal Responses to Portuguese Occupation in Late-Fifteenth Century North Africa,” JSCS 12, no. 3 (2011): 309-325.
María Cruz de Carlos Varona, “‘Imágenes Restacadas’ en la Europa Moderna: El Caso de Jesús de Medinaceli,” JSCS 12, no. 3 (2011): 327-354.
Javier Irigoyen-García, “‘Poco Os Falta Para Moros, Pues Tanto lo Parecéis’: Impersonating the Moor in the Spanish Mediterranean,” JSCS 12, no. 3 (2011): 355-369.