Below is an announcement from NASA:

The National Association of Student Anthropologists (NASA) will launch its first online publication, The NASA e-Journal, under the banner of the 2008 American Anthropological Association conference theme: “Inclusion, Collaboration, and Engagement.”

We seek scholarly submissions from undergraduate and graduate students worldwide about the application of anthropological theories and methods outside of academia or across disciplines for the purpose of exploring, problematizing, or addressing social problems. Have you worked in an internship, co-op or another job as a student anthropologist and wish to reflect on how you relied on your anthropological training? Perhaps you collaborated with students from other disciplines at a volunteer organization and seek to describe the value you added from an anthropological perspective? Is there a paper you submitted for a service-learning class where you addressed a social problem using anthropological methods? Have you done fieldwork in a community where you sought to create positive social change in the process of gathering data? Tell us about it! Scholarly articles should be 1,000 words in length and will be subject to a double blind review process.

We also welcome innovative commentary submissions to the e-Journal. Commentaries are opinion or avant-garde pieces of work which are the original work of the authors. These submissions are to express the next generation of anthropologists’ ideas, goals and beliefs of the direction our discipline should head, be it locally, nationally or globally. We seek a plurality of voices on this issue and intend to raise awareness among fellow students as well as more established anthropologists about the direction our discipline is heading. Commentary submissions might include such mediums as written pieces (1,000 words in length), photo stories (10 photos + 1,000 words of commentary in length) and videos/YouTube© clips (10-minute maximum in duration + 1,000 words of commentary in length)

Submission Guidelines:

Please submit a full 1,000 word manuscript for consideration by midnight EST on April 21, 2008 along with any accompanying materials.

* Authors should complete their submissions according to the AAA style guide (http://aaanet.org/pubs/style_guide.htm).
* Submissions should be saved in Microsoft Word “.doc” format with the file title being the first author’s last name and first initial. (example: HebertM.doc)
* We invite authors to provide drawings, graphs and maps to enhance the visual component of each article. These should be included as separate attachments in the email. Graphics should be saved as “.jpg” format. The file name should be the first authors last name, first initial and then the number of the photo. (example: HebertM1.jpg) Please also include reference in your text where graphics should be placed by inserting the above identifier in the text.
* Videos should be provided as a link (if located on a site such as YouTube) or included as a graphics file in a readily viewable format such as QuickTime or Windows Media Player.
* Please send submissions to the e-Journal editorial team with the subject heading “NASA Manuscripts – Vol. 1” at nasaejournal@gmail.com.

Authors will be notified regardless if their work has been selected for publication or not. We look forward to publishing submissions for Volume 1 of the NASA e-Journal in the fall of 2008 and spring of 2009.

The 2007 Meeting of the AAA started yesterday. I’m here in DC for the conference and went in yesterday to register. I spent about an hour total at the conference yesterday and I didn’t attend any sessions. But, I can already tell this conference venue is going to be much better than last years (the San Jose Convention Center). There were many groups of people hanging out the hotel and it felt much more intimate than the too large venue last year.

I’m headed into the conference in a bit. I’m not sure that I’ll sit in on any full sessions today, but I’m happy to finally spend some time there. I’ll be meeting up with a bunch of people this afternoon, and that’s always fun!