16th International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (ICES-16)

The International Conference of Ethiopian Studies (ICES) was first held in Rome in 1959. Since then it has been held in different cities all over the world. The aim is to hold the conference every three years. The recent locations are Michigan (1994), Kyoto (1997), Addis Ababa (2000) and Hamburg (2003). This is not just an international conference, but a world conference, bringing together Ethiopianists from all parts of the world. For most it is the only major opportunity to meet a large number of colleagues. Norway in general and Trondheim in particular has for some time been asked to file an application to host a future conference. At the Hamburg conference Italy was granted the 2006 conference, but the Italian committee later reported failure. It is a great honour, but also a great challenge, to be asked to host this conference. The 16th ICES is planned to be held in Trondheim 2-6 July 2007. ICES is shaped by its history. Within the broad profile defined by its tradition, any interested scholar may submit a paper. The organizing committee will then review papers, accept or reject them, and decide on panels and plenary sessions. The totality of these papers make up the conference. This means that the detailed programme is available on ly shortly before the conference and only the broad outline can be described at this early stage. The conference is planned to last for five days. There will be a plenary opening session and a plenary closing and business session. There will also be pl enary and semi-plenary sessions to complement the panels, but the speakers and the modalities of these sessions will be decided only after we have the response to the first call for papers (October 2006) and can see the current trends in Ethiopian studies . The main work of the conference takes place in the panels.