One of the features of the 16th ESSE Conference is the Doctoral Symposium, which
continues an ESSE tradition dating from 2012 and is designed to provide a platform for
young scholars to present and receive feedback on their work. The Symposium is open to
PhD students who are writing their theses in English Studies and are at least in the second
year of work on their doctorate at the time of the Symposium. To be eligible, either their
supervisor or they themselves must be known to the Treasurer of ESSE as a member of an
ESSE-affiliated Association (or, in relevant countries, of a Department that belongs to an
ESSE-affiliated Association) at the moment of application.
Participants will have an opportunity to make a brief presentation of their work in progress
in one of three strands: English Language & Linguistics, Literatures in English, and Cultural
& Area Studies. Their presentation should deal with the issues addressed or hypotheses
tested in their doctoral research, the results so far obtained, and above all the methodology
applied, with the purpose of gaining feedback from established scholars in the field and from
their peers. Each presentation will last no longer than 10 minutes, followed by 15 minutes’
discussion. Participants are expected to attend all the presentations in their own strand and
to take part in the discussions. There will also be extensive opportunities for informal
contact with other participants and with the academics present at the conference.
The Symposium will be opened by the President of ESSE.
Note that each PhD student can submit an application to only one strand of the Doctoral
Symposium and should specify in the application which strand they wish to be placed in.
Applications must include a letter from the student’s PhD supervisor giving the
(provisional) title of the dissertation and confirming that the student is working under
his/her supervision and has completed at least his/her first year of PhD studies. The
Treasurer of ESSE will check the eligibility of all applicants and their supervisors. Participants
in the Doctoral Symposium can participate fully in the ESSE Conference and can, if they so
wish and their abstract is accepted, present a paper in one of the seminars.
The application should take the form of a summary of the project of no more than 300
words, indicating:
• The main topic and issues, including the thesis proposed/hypothesis defended;
• The methodology (theoretical tools and standpoints);
• Where relevant, the corpus under consideration;
• The results obtained so far.
Each strand of the Symposium will be coordinated by two experts (to be known as
Convenors). They will make a selection from the applications received, chair the discussions
and respond to the presentations.