The Serbian Association for the Study of English is a national association of university professors, teaching assistants, PhD students and other members of the higher education staff specializing in the English language, anglophone literatures and the culture of the anglophone nations.
It was founded in 2008, as one of the successors of the former Yugoslav Association for the Study of English, established in 1992, and The Association for the Study of English of Serbia and Montenegro, established in 2003. The first chairperson of the SASE Executive was professor Radmila Šević, PhD and the seat of SASE was at the University of Novi Sad. In the period between 2011 and 2019, the SASE president was professor Biljana Mišić Ilić from the University of Niš.
The Serbian Association for the Study of English is a proud member of the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE, http://www.essenglish.org/), the largest European federation of national higher educational associations for the study of English. In that sense, all the members of the Serbian Association for the Study of English are at the same time the members of ESSE. The Serbian Association for the Study of English, together with its sister associations from across Europe, and ESSE in general, aims to promote the study, the understanding and the dissemination of scientific knowledge of the English language, literatures in English and cultures of English-speaking peoples.
SASE/ESSE membership qualifies the members to:
1. Actively professionally and organizationally engage in arranging national and/or international conferences aimed at furthering the above-mentioned fields of study. The largest such conferences at the level of ESSE are biennial ones, held each time in a different member state; the last such conference (ESSE-16) was held at Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany, from 29 August to 2 September 2022 (ESSE 16 Mainz). The next one (ESSE-17) will be held at the Université de Lausanne and the Swiss Association of University Teachers of English (SAUTE) in Lausanne, Switzerland, which will take place from 26 to 30 August 2024. ESSE 17 Lausanne
2. Have access to information networks (in the form of a newsletter – The Messenger, the SASE mailing list), about matters related to English studies in Serbia and in Europe, such as curriculum developments, national conferences and specialised research projects, ESSE bursaries and prizes and similar relevant information.
3. Foster research networks in specialist topics which bring together higher education scholars and facilitate intellectual cooperation (SASE/ESSE members are entitled to publish their papers in ESSE’s scholarly journal, the European Journal of English Studies (EJES), once they meet the applicable criteria).
4. Apply for ESSE’s bursary schemes (http://essenglish.org/bursary-rules/) and book prizes (http://essenglish.org/book-award-rules/.
5. Take an active participation in other similar activities with the aim of promoting the understanding of the English language, the literatures in English and the cultures of the English-speaking nations.