Program Overview

Conference Registration
8:15 am – 5:00 pm

8:45 – 10:15 am | Session 1
9:30 to 12:30 pm | Exhibition: Materials from Yale University Library Collections on Estonian poet and Yale Librarian Aleksis Rannit (1914-1985)
10:15 – 10:45 am | Coffee Break
10:45 am – 12:15 pm | Session 2
12:15 – 2:00 pm | Break
12:30 – 1:30 pm | Film: “The Life and Death of a Humanist Woman, or Be Smaller than a Poppy-seed”
1:00 – 1:45 pm | Tour: Jewish-American Art and its Baltic Connections at the Yale University Art Gallery
1:00 – 4:00 pm | Banknotes and Coin Display from independent collector, John F. Lostys
2:00 – 3:30 pm | Session 3
3:30 – 4:00 pm | Coffee Break
4:00 – 5:30 pm | Session 4
6:00 – 7:30 pm | Plenary: Egils Levits, “Geopolitics and the Baltic States”

• Egils Levits, who served as President of Latvia from 2019 to 2023, was a judge at the European Court of Human Rights from 1995 to 2004. He was also a judge at the Court of Justice of the European Union from 2004 to 2019. In August 2023 he was appointed special representative of the Republic of Latvia on issues of international law and state responsibility.
• Moderator: Professor Daunis Auers, University of Latvia

Conference Registration
8:15 am – 5:00 pm

8:45 – 10:15 am | Session 5
10:15 – 10:45 am | Coffee and News from the Journal of Baltic Studies
10:45 am – 12:15 pm | Session 6
12:15 – 2:00 pm | Break
12:25 – 1:45 pm | Graduate Student Luncheon, Sponsored by the Baltic American Freedom Foundation (By Invitation)
1:00 – 4:00 pm | Banknotes and Coin Display from independent collector, John F. Lostys
2:00 – 3:30 pm | Session 7
3:30 – 4:00 pm | Coffee Break
4:00 – 5:30 pm | Session 8
6:00 – 7:15 pm | Plenary Session: Baltic Ambassadors to the United States, “The Baltic Way in the 21st Century”

• Kristjan Prikk, Estonian Ambassador to the United States
• Māris Selga, Latvian Ambassador to the United States
• Audra Plepytė, Lithuanian Ambassador to the United States
• Moderator: Professor Olena Lennon, University of New Haven

7:15 – 9:00 pm | Dinner Celebration

9:00 am – 10:30 pm | Session 9
10:45 am – 11:45 am | AABS Member Meeting

The biennial AABS member meeting takes place at every AABS conference and features updates on the organization’s activities and presentation of awards, such as the AABS Biennial Book Prize, Undergraduate Paper Award, and Vilis Vītols Article Prize. All AABS members and those who have received AABS travel grants to attend the 2024 conference are highly encouraged to attend the member meeting