Send conference paper proposal?

[Vark]

I just received a CFP from a conference and the topic is one that fits perfectly with a paper that I have delivered before. An expanded form of the paper has been published in a little known journal. Normally, I would not consider sending in a proposal for the same paper and certainly not one that has been published. However, the conference is overseas and it's very doubtful that those in the sponsoring organization and attendees will have heard or read the paper. Should I consider submitting? 

[lightning]

There's nothing wrong at all with submitting, as long as there are no proceedings where your paper presentation would be published, if accepted to the conference.

[Parasaurolophus]

I wouldn't send a paper that's already been published.

Since it's just a proposal, however, perhaps you could use your published paper as a starting point for a proposal on something that falls out of it, or which you weren't able to explore in the paper?

[Wahoo Redux]

Expand on the published paper.  Take a new angle or add some new theoretical model. Did you have a tangential idea while writing?  It is not unusual for scholars to have a scholarly trajectory and explore the same subject from various angles.

Good luck.

[mamselle]

My thesis advisor always said, "Keep a 'Splinters' file for all the things you can't include in one paper; you'll find a use for them some other time."

Hope you find something you can develop!

M.

[Hegemony]

Yeah, it's not the done thing to present a paper that's already been published. And it will look weird on your CV. I agree — just push it in a somewhat new direction. Bonus: you'll get another publication out of it. You should never present a conference paper that's not aiming at a subsequent publication — then you get maximum mileage for your work.

[jerseyjay]

I would not just present a paper that you have published elsewhere. I am not sure that this is unethical per se, but it defeats the purpose of conference presentations: to put your work out there and get responses that in turn help you develop the research. Of course, it is possible that nobody shows up or says anything useful at your presentation, but why go then? Even if the journal is small and not well known, it is possible that somebody, seeing your name in the program for the conference, would be interested and google you and find, and read, the paper. And it is possible that somebody from the organizing committee would have seen the article--even been asked to peer review it.

I agree that you might want to find a way of developing the ideas in your article as the basis for a presentation. ("In my article X, I examined how the Protestant Reformation affected basket weaving in Central Europe. I want to now look at how basket weaving in Central Europe reflected the Catholic Counter Reformation....") I am not sure how well developed papers that you present need to be, but you can use the conference in the way I noted above: to get feedback on your research that in turn allows you to shape your research.

[Hibush]

There are a lot of "spamfrences" that send out invitations similar to what you describe. Their sole purpose is to get money from you and as many of your buddies as they can snare.

Make sure this is a legit conference.

[Hegemony]

Hibush adds an important caution!

[AvidReader]

You should never present a conference paper that's not aiming at a subsequent publication — then you get maximum mileage for your work.

I wish I had realized this during and after graduate school--I figured it out about three years ago, and it transformed my research and writing process. Yay Hegemony!

AR.