Going Romance

Past conferences

The conference series has known several periods and we anticipate new developments in the future.

The origin of the conference series lies in a workshop organised in Utrecht. Several follow-ups in Utrecht made the workshop evolve towards a more general enterprise that was considered to be the “Utrecht” contribution to the interaction between general theory and Romance languages. This first phase consisted of eight venues in Utrecht (1985-1994).

Due to its success, linguists working on Romance and/or theoretical linguistics at other universities in the Netherlands expressed their interest for organizing the conference. At first, a formula was used in which once every two years a local organisation was responsible for the organisation. This situation lasted for six venues (1995-2000). Later, the circuit gradually developed towards a situation in which all Dutch universities that insert Romance linguistics in their research programs organized the conference in turn: eight venues, 2001 – 2008. At the organisational level, this led to the existence of the (overarching) steering committee alongside a local organisation for each specific venue. As a result, the conference series was and mostly still is “all Dutch”.

The most recent development (since 2009), is constituted by the possibility to organise the conference outside of the Netherlands, in the standard case once every two years. The exception has been the celebration of the 25th edition in the founder city of the enterprise.

The conference series has the status of being the “European” circuit for issues in Romance languages and linguistic theory, such that there seem to be no particular reasons any more to not organise it at several places in Europe. Preference is given to universities in countries that have no comparable internationally oriented circuit themselves.

The venue in 2020 will be venue number XXXIV.