Postponement of AHNCA’s Graduate Student Symposium (Scheduled for March 22, 2020)
Dear Fellow AHNCA Members,
I’m sure that you, like the rest of us, have been attentively watching the news about the spread of the coronavirus. AHNCA and the Dahesh Museum of Art have, sadly, decided that we cannot host the 2020 Graduate Student Symposium on March 22 because it will expose participants to possible contagion.
Several of the symposium’s speakers live in states or countries that have already declared a state of emergency, and several of the participants’ universities have already shut down. Under these circumstances, the best solution is to postpone the symposium until after the summer when, we hope, the threat of the virus will have receded.
This is not a decision that we make lightly — we know that our participants have put countless hours into preparing their presentations and have arranged travel and lodging. However, the probability of further virus spread at a symposium that draws audience and speakers nationally and internationally is just too dire to ignore.
Be well, keep safe, and thank you for your participation in AHNCA.
Pat Mainardi
Program Chair
Association of Historians of Nineteenth-Century Art