Dear IAUPE Members,

The Membership Committee of IAUPE is inviting you to recommend to us prospective new members who might be willing to consider joining our organization.

To date the IAUPE has approximately 500 members, spread over six continents. The organization is seeking to increase its membership, and we are interested in attracting both established scholars (full professors) and scholars of distinction who may not have professorial posts to join the organization, making membership a matter of personal scholarly excellence rather than of formal rank or institutional affiliation.

We are asking you to support our endeavour by emailing us names of prospective nominees.  If it's available to you, please include any additional information about the people you recommend, i.e.:

The application form is available here. We are offering our services in approaching the individuals you recommend and in preparing the nomination forms if the prospective member responds positively to the invitation to join IAUPE.

For your information, we have included below the description of IAUPE that we will send to scholars you recommend to us.  The description is largely based on information provided by Marianne Thormählen, past president of IAUPE and organizer of the highly successful IAUPE conference in Lund.  See the IAUPE website www.iaupe.net.

Thank you very much for your support and cooperation.

The International Association of University Professors of English, IAUPE, is a global association of scholars and teachers dedicated to the study of English in all its facets. Membership in this premier association, which is open only to senior and established scholars, and which is by nomination only, holds much prestige.

Why is IAUPE important? The fundamental purpose of IAUPE is to study, develop, and promote English as an academic discipline all over the world. Our subject needs to consider its identity and where it stands in the changing world of scholarship. English-language research is becoming increasingly integrated with general linguistics, and English literature interacts with a number of disciplines, including comparative literature and culturally, historically, and philosophically orientated sciences. These developments entail both exciting opportunities and serious challenges. To ensure that our discipline continues to develop in fruitful ways, we need meeting-places where we can form meaningful alliances. IAUPE membership is professionally beneficial in providing such opportunities in ways and on a scale unmatched by any other organization.

IAUPE's History: The organization was formed shortly after the Second World War to bring together senior representatives of English as an academic subject on what was everybody's home ground, irrespective of the ravages of war. The Association flourished, in due course attracting members from all over the world. To date IAUPE has approximately 500 members, spread over six continents. The Association is seeking new members, and is also encouraging distinguished researchers without professorial posts to join, making membership a matter of personal scholarly excellence rather than of formal rank or institutional affiliation.

What does IAUPE do? Once every three years, usually between the middle of July and the middle of August, IAUPE members meet for a conference that lasts for a full working week, attracting between 150 and 250 members from all over the world. The IAUPE conference is one of the most prestigious in the discipline, and is by-invitation-only. Conferences normally alternate between English- and non-English-speaking countries. The 2007 conference was held in Lund, Sweden, and the 2010 conference will take place in Malta, hosted by Professor Peter Vassallo.

IAUPE conferences are special in a number of ways. First the coverage of the academic program is unusually, even uniquely, comprehensive. For instance, the academic program at the Lund conference was the work of the 37 Conference Chairs, who organized not only the fullest IAUPE program on record, but also sections whose overall quality was remarkably high even for this association. A printed volume containing a selection of conference papers, including the two splendid keynote lectures by Elizabeth Traugott and Helen Vendler, is in progress under the editorship of Marianne Thormahlen, and will appear in the Lund Studies in English series.

The multiple sections featured at the Lund conference included such diverse subjects as Old and Middle English, Renaissance literature, the history of the English language, Victorian literature, discourse linguistics, the literature of the eighteenth century, new literatures in English, and figurative language (for both linguists and literature scholars). Members could move from one section to another, indulging interests within and outside their own field of specialization.

Second, an essential function of the IAUPE conference is serving as an international academic meeting-place for people who, while all contributing to the teaching of English literature and language, wouldn't ordinarily come together and talk. Throughout the conference week, the most unlikely combinations keep forming, Scandinavian corpus linguists finding themselves sharing coffee tables with Canadian Milton specialists and Japanese experts on the Victorian novel.

Third, community formation and diverse cultural experiences are an integral part of IAUPE conferences. The academic program doesn't take up more than four hours or so on any day, and it includes special events -- concerts, excursions, and so on -- intended to provide conference participants, as well as their partners and familie,s with opportunities to become acquainted with the best that the venue can offer. The Lund conference, for instance, featured an organ recital especially for IAUPE in the beautiful Romanesque cathedral, a special reception in the Cultural History Museum, and an excursion to a castle (Wanås) that is also home to internationally famous site-specific sculpture. On the Saturday, after the formal closing of the conference, conference attendees and guests were invited to participate in an optional excursion to Denmark, with a stop at Hamlet's Elsinore.

In addition to the triennial conferences, IAUPE keeps members up to date with what's happening in and to English in countries where the organization has members. The Association also has a program of publication, thus ensuring that the communication of members' research isn't limited to the triennial conference.  The IAUPE website (www.IAUPE.net) is currently under construction. Among other features, the website will include Country Reports which outline such issues in individual countries as current scholarly trends; currently debated academic topics and issues; current governmental research policies; significant new appointments and publications over the past year; new publishing ventures (e.g. new journals and series, especially if they offer opportunities for IAUPE members); new electronic resources of relevance to scholars and teachers in English; practices and developments in the teaching of English as an academic subject; developments in the field of education generally.

Membership is by nomination only.  Association fees, paid by members every three years, help defray IAUPE publication expenses, website costs, costs of printing and posting the annual letter and enclosures (all materials are mailed by regular mail), and other minor organizational expenses. Some subsidies for travel to triennial conferences by members in soft-currency countries are also provided.