Biannual conference of the Nordic Association for American Studies
Thursday 28 May-Sunday 31 May, 2009
University of Copenhagen, Denmark

COSMOPOLITAN AMERICA?: THE UNITED STATES IN TRANSITION

NAAS conference website is now up and running. Please go to naas2009.hum.ku.dk/ for full details of the conference, including the program and information about the closing banquet/concert.

The conference will open and close with two very distinguished plenary speakers from the United States, Prof. Mathew Frye Jacobson (Yale) and Prof. Brent Hayes Edwards (Columbia). We will also welcome plenary speakers from each of the four Nordic American studies associations: Eddie Ashbee (Denmark), Anders Olsson (Sweden), Ole Moen (Norway), and Ari Helo (Finland). The conference will feature approximately 115 panelists over three days of panel sessions. The program has changed some since my 5 February email, which included the provisional program as an attachment, so be sure to double-check your own place in the schedule. If you have any further questions about/corrections to the conference program, please contact me at bone@hum.ku.dk. Indeed, I encourage you to (re)submit any requests for audio-visual equipment as soon as possible (I have tried to keep track of the ones that have already come in, but with the program constantly changing it would be helpful to know that I haven't lost sight of any of those requests in the last few months...).

Please pay particular attention to the process of registration and payment. The website features an electronic registration form, and information on how to transfer your registration fee to the conference bank account. Please ensure that it is clear who is sending the payment, so that we can tally the registration forms with the payments. The instructions on the website should be fairly clear and self-explanatory, but if you have any questions about registration, please do not write back to me; instead, contact our administrative assistant (and website maestro!), Birgitte Lomborg (lomborg@hum.ku.dk). Please note too that the standard conference fee of 700kr (with a discount rate of 500kr for graduate students) rises to 900kr after 15 April, so we encourage you to register (and pay) sooner rather than later. Registration covers the cost of lunch on all three days of the conference, as well as coffee breaks in the mornings/afternoons.

The website also features a section entitled "Practical Information" that includes information about accommodation, not least a range of discounted hotel rooms courtesy of an arrangement we have made with the Br�chner Group. Please remember that (as previously stated in the attachment about accommodation distributed with my 5 February email), these discounted rooms are only available until 25 March, so it makes sense to book your accommodation before that date. If you have any further questions regarding accommodation, please direct them to my organizing committee colleague, Dr. Anne Dvinge (advinge@hum.ku.dk).

The website also features further details of the Saturday evening conference banquet and concert at Copenhagen Jazzhouse. We are especially pleased to announce that the concert will feature tenor saxophonist Joe Lovano together with the Copenhagen Jazzhouse Trio. Lovano has been described as "one of the greatest musicians in jazz history" by _The New York Times_, while _Village Voice_ once declared "Move over Pavarotti, the greatest Italian tenor around today isn't Luciano, but Lovano." Tickets for the concert are offered to NAAS conference participants at a discounted rate of 175 kroner (not 150 kroner as previously stated/hoped--but hey, we didn't have Joe Lovano on the bill back then...). The banquet is being catered by Kragerup og Ko, and a full menu (the negotiations for which have just been finalized!) will be available on the website shortly. Tickets for the banquet are 250 kroner. You are very welcome to bring guests to both the banquet and concert, but please specify this information in the online registration form, and ensure that full payment is included with the conference registration fee.

Finally, the website also includes information on how to get to the campus where the faculty of humanities is located. All academic sessions during the conference--panels and plenaries--will take place on site.

So, please head on over to the website. With the conference now only two and a half months away, we are looking forward to welcoming you all to Copenhagen.

Cheers, Martyn