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NYSCA 67th Annual Conference
October 23-25, 2009
Honor's Haven Resort, Ellenville NY
Final 2009 Schedule
Examining Ritual, Technology, and Community in this New Century:
A Global Discussion in New York State
by Donna Flayhan, Ph.D., Vice President, New York State Communication Association
NYSCA Conference, October 23-25, 2009
As Vice President of the New York State Communication Association (NYSCA) in 2009, I am excited to announce that the 67th Annual Conference, “Examining Ritual, Technology, and Community in this New Century: A Global Discussion in New York State” will be held from October 23-25, 2009 at the Honor’s Haven Resort in Ellenville, New York http://www.honorshaven.com/contact.aspx and is shaping up to be an exciting conference with speakers including Lance Strate, John Durham Peters, and Michael Lang.
The conference theme (described below) is indicated in the title and is a tribute to the life and work of former NYSCA member, Columbia University Professor, and mentor to many who study Culture, Communication, Community and Ritual, the late James W. Carey.
The Friday evening opening keynote address will be delivered by Fordham University Professor Lance Strate who is currently the Executive Director of the Institute for General Semantics, was a founder and for a decade President of the Media Ecology Association that has helped to build a global community of scholars interested in Media Ecology, centered in New York but connected from Norway to South Korea to China, Brazil, and of course Canada and Mexico. Dr. Strate is a witty public speaker and was a good friend and contemporary of the late James W. Carey. Dr. Strate has worked to build intellectual communities in physical places and electronic spaces throughout his career and we are fortunate to have him open the conference.
The Saturday evening keynote address will be delivered by University of Iowa Professor John Durham Peters. Dr. Peters is author of Speaking Into the Air: A History of the Idea of Communication which was funded by a highly coveted NEA grant in its initial stages. The book is used at Universities all over the globe at the graduate level of study. Dr. Peters knew James W. Carey well, and his work embodies the high level of thinking combined with a high level of caring for community, ritual, and communication that was the hallmark of the work of James W. Carey, along with a complete absence of elitism that pollutes much scholarship. Peters, like Carey, is neither an “elitist nor a communist” and is an extraordinary scholar of Communication and Culture.
The year 2009 marks the 40th Anniversary year of the Woodstock Festival and I am excited to announce that Michael Lang (promoter of the 1969 Festival and co-founder of Woodstock Ventures) will speak to the NYSCA Conference on Saturday, October 24th in the afternoon, followed by music from Woodstock today, including Woodstock Elementary School (Peace, Love, and Learning) children performing poetry and music at the conference. The Woodstock Historical Society will also have a presence to show the longer history of the community of the arts that has flourished through ritual and community for more than a Century and gave birth to the creative forces that made the name and town “Woodstock” a symbol of peace, song, and hope to a generations around the world.
In addition to these already lined up events, some of you senior scholars and past-presidents of NYSCA watch out, because I will be contacting you again with request of your time and insights during the conference including a to Carey’s influence and legacy (shooting for the dynamic duo Susan Drucker and Gary Gumpert to do Carey justice as only they could). Brian Cogen, author of The Encyclopedia of Punk and also past NYSCA President will do justice to the Wilson Award and Postman presentations.
Student Top Paper Awards will continue to be a center piece of the conference, and undergraduate student work will be highlighted in Poster Sessions rather than panel presentations so that the work is honored and seen by many conference attendees without being placed onto panels that compete for audience shares (to put it into old fashioned Neilson terms).
Finally, Honor’s Haven http://www.honorshaven.com/contact.aspx as a venue looks to be a wonderful new conference site for NYSCA and is just 15 South of the resort in Hudson Valley that had been the NYSCA site for many of the past years. Honor’s Haven has agreed to keep our room prices and meals down to the same as last year’s prices at the previous location, while providing a vast improvement in facilities (beautiful dining room views, wireless access throughout hotel and grounds, indoor meeting rooms in a variety of shapes, sizes, and uses, and an indoor pool, tennis courts, and surrounding nature trails).
All meals are included in the room rates and will be served in the dining room with fall foliage mountain views. Trails for hiking and walking, indoor pool, tennis courts, basketball court, yoga studio, family viewing room, will all make the event wonderful for conference attendees and for their friends and family members who may accompany scholars. We will try to arrange some onsite childcare in public spaces, please send note to
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if you think you may be interested in childcare onsite so that we may gauge the need in advance.
From the amazing speakers, to the special location, to the conference theme, this 67th meeting of the New York State Communication Association looks to be an exciting addition to a wonderful ritual in New York State, the annual meeting of the New York State Communication Association upstate in Autumn.
to register for the conference, visit our membership page
see our call for participation
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