The proposed workshop (SCCC-2) is an important next step in the development of novel scientific approaches to
Kartvelian studies. The first step in this direction was made in 2016, when American, European, and Georgian
scholars met in Paris under the auspices of the four-day Workshop “South Caucasian Chalk Circle”, co-organised
Lenore Grenoble (University of Chicago), Ioana Chitoran (University of Paris Diderot), Maria Polinsky (University of
Maryland), and myself. Since then,participants of SCCC have continued interacting through a series of workshops as
well as intensive teaching programs for undergraduate and graduate students, with the overall goal of introducing
current linguistic methodology into Kartvelian studies and developing a solid common platform for collaborative
research. As a result of this ongoing collaboration, scholars at several universities and research centers in the USA
and in Europe have become familiar with the research conducted by Georgian Kartvelologists, and Georgian experts
have been receiving updates on modern linguistic theorizing. Due to these efforts, it is also possible to include young
Georgian scholars in international research projects and to promote Kartvelian languages as the source of important
data for foreign linguists, many of them young, thus representing the new generation in linguistic research.
The proposed workshop is co-organised by Nino Doborjginidze (Ilia State University), Maria Polinsky (University of
Maryland), and Lea Nash (Paris University 8), and will take at Ilia University on September 12-14, 2018. It will further
advance two important goals. First, it will bring together Georgian research institutions by creating a necessary space
for developing important collaboration between specialists of two related scholarly disciplines, linguistics and
Kartvelian studies. Second, close joint work with foreign colleagues, in the form of co-authorship or collaborative
experimental research, enables the development and successful implementation of hitherto non-existing intensive
training programs in modern generative linguistics and in interdisciplinary fields such as psycholinguistics and L1
acquisition. The target audience of SCCC-2 will include young researchers from Georgian public and private
universities as well as research institutes. Foreign scholars will directly interact with Georgian colleagues and use
this venue to
develop future collaborations and include Georgian scholars in ongoing international projects.