by: Kathryn Engle

(Feb. 3, 2015) — The University of Kentucky Appalachian Center,Appalachian Studies and the Graduate Appalachian Research Community (GARC) are announcing a call for participation for the 2015 UK Appalachian Research Symposium and Arts Showcase. Invitations are extended to both undergraduate and graduate students of all disciplines who are currently attending an accredited Kentucky university or college, and registration is free for both presenters and attendees.

The symposium is intended to foster a supportive community in which students from various fields can present their Appalachian-based research and creative work, learn from each other’s findings, and discuss research and potential points of collaboration. Students creating performance or visual artworks related to Appalachia are strongly encouraged to participate as well. The topic of the work must be original, related to Appalachia, and produced in the last three years. Information on the symposium is available on the Appalachian Center website athttps://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/annual-research-symposium.

This is the sixth year for the Appalachian Research Symposium and Arts Showcase, which will be held Saturday, March 7, at the William T. Young Library.

The deadline for submitting an abstract online is midnight, Feb. 15. Abstracts can be uploaded onto the Appalachian Center website at https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/app-symposium. Presenters must also register for the conference athttps://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/presenter-registration-symposium-and-arts-showcase upon acceptance.

For those interested in attending the symposium but not presenting, registration is available online at https://appalachiancenter.as.uky.edu/non-presenter-registration. The deadline for registration is midnight, Feb. 28, 2015.

This year's keynote speaker will be Lisa Conley, who recently completed her doctoral degree in sociology at the University of Kentucky. Her dissertation, "Talking Food: Motivations of Home Food Preservation Practitioners in Kentucky," was a qualitative urban-rural comparison of home gardeners and those who preserve foods at home through canning, drying, freezing, or other methods.

For more information about the 2015 UK Appalachian Research Symposium and Arts Showcase, contact Kathryn Engle, president of the Graduate Appalachian Research Community, atkathryn.engle@uky.edu.