Dear ASAP membership:
We, as members of the ASAP Motherboard, are writing to let you know that ASAP/12, which was going to take place at the University of Utah this coming October, has been postponed to October of 2021. This decision was made unanimously by all of us. It was very difficult for us to decide, but we find that various issues related to COVID-19—including potential issues in travel, unforeseeable consequences regarding the ability of many members to submit at this time or to participate in the Fall, and our obligation to steward the organization’s finances and well-being were all central to our decision.
We are very grateful to our partner, Jeremy Rosen, at the University of Utah, and we will continue working with him so ASAP/12 is successful in its new date. We will be contacting participants and members when we are able to schedule a new date. We are in the process of notifying those who submitted proposals and we hope all of them are resubmitted next year. We will also continue to plan an international symposium for the summer of 2021. We are in conversations with potential hosts.
We have also decided to keep open our calls for our book awards and our graduate student prize. We understand that due to both personal circumstances, and the closure of university press warehouses, submissions are impossible for many of you. We have thus extended the deadline September 1, 2020. Presses and authors can continue to submit books, and graduate students may also continue send papers. We want to make sure that no one who wishes to be considered is excluded due to our extraordinary circumstances. If you have any questions, please contact Yogita Goyal (ygoyal@humnet.ucla.edu). Information about the prizes can be found as always in our website, www.artsofthepresent.org.
ASAP has, since its foundation, strived to be an organization invested in intellectual exchange and originality. Even if the conference is a key event for us, we will continue to work in the advancement of the association’s mission. We are currently working on developing alternative programs, in collaboration with ASAP/Journal and ASAP/J, to continue to engage in conversation within and among the contemporary arts worldwide.
We are very proud that our print and digital publications continue working hard. ASAP/Journal Volume 5.1 is currently in press and will be mailing soon, with interviews, essays and other texts. As ever, a print subscription is available with membership. And through May, Johns Hopkins University Press is offering free access through Project Muse. Issue 5.2 will be ready this Spring, and will include a dossier on Afro-Pessimist Aesthetics, among other features. And we are currently finalizing the contents of the deliberately untimely “Humor Issue” for publication in September. Our current calls for papers for special issues on “Authotheory” and “New Worlds of Speculation” are open. You may find all information here: https://www.press.jhu.edu/journals/asapjournal
Our open platform ASAP/J continues to publish book and exhibition reviews and born-digital content, most recently the “Crisis Harmonies” series. Please find our features and submission information in our website: http://asapjournal.com
Finally, we would like you to consider renewing your membership in the organization. We understand that this may be impossible for many of our members facing economic uncertainty. But if you are able to do so, your membership fees will allow us to better support our virtual events, and to continue building ASAP for the years to come.
If you would have any questions, comments or concerns, please direct them to the current president, Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado (isanchez@wustl.edu). We thank you all for being a part of our association and we look forward to seeing you virtually this year and in person in 2021.
The Motherboard of the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP).
Ignacio M. Sánchez Prado, President
Tatiana Flores, Vice-President
Karen Tongson, Second Vice-President
Yogita Goyal, Past President
Kenneth Allan, Secretary
Maria Bose, Treasurer
Kinohi Nishikawa, Communications Director
Elise Archias, Member-at-Large
Lauren Cramer, Member-at-Large
Jonathan Eburne, Editor, ASAP/Journal
Elizabeth Ho, Incoming Editor, ASAP/Journal