Report from the Executive Council, summer 2020

News

The Executive Council meeting planned for summer 2020 had to be rescheduled to January 2021 due to the Covid-19 pandemic. However, some more urgent business was discussed via email.

In particular, the following decisions were taken:

    1. To continue funding the open access publication of the Association’s journal, Recherche Littéraire / Literary Research;
    2. To extend the funding for website maintenance and development, was well as for achieving a secure complete membership list, to enable reaching all members via a secure mailing list;
    3. To approve several proposals by Research Development Committee, in particular:
      1. the new, more detailed descriptions of Short-term and Standing Research Committees, and the new procedures for applying to establish a new research committee or renew an existing short-term committee for an additional term (more details can be found on the webpage of Research Development Committee);
      2. the confirmation of the renewal of the Research Committee on Literature and Neuroscience until the end of its third term in 2021;
      3. the renewal of the Research Committee on Comic Studies and Graphic Narratives for a second term;
      4. the renewal of the Research Committee on Religion, Ethics and Literature for a third term;
      5. the approval of the re-constitution of the Research Committee on Scriptural Reasoning and Comparative Studies as a Standing Research Committee, subject to additional information being provided to the Executive Council meeting of January 2021;
      6. encouraging research committees to disseminate their research as widely as possible to ICLA members, including through the use of open-access publication whenever possible;
      7. postponing to the January 2021 meeting of the Executive Council a further discussion on a policy of financial support for research committees.

More information on all the above can be found in the Research Development Committee annual report for 2019-20 published on the Committee’s page.

Progress on the planning of the Congress in 2022 and of the early-career conference in 2021 was also discussed.