Academic Conferences, Why I Love and Hate Them

I promise to be back as soon as I can with the completion of my Christmas tree post as well as some words about our Christmas, but... I really wanted to write this post before the MLA, so I can come back later and see whether what I experienced was the same or different of my current view of academic conferences.

First of all, call me naïve, overly enthusiastic, or idealistic (and I guess I am all these things), but I just love academic conferences. Except that oftentimes when I get there and see what's going on, I feel like I totally despise some aspects of them and academia. I have to say upfront though, that there's one organization I belong to whose conferences give me hardly any bad feelings: the Children's Literature Association. This is probably because the organization is small (around 1,000 members) and people who love children's literature are (generally) nice and caring :)

I love conferences because I am (and have always been) absolutely passionate about learning, research, and knowledge in general, especially new things I had never thought about. I get extremely excited when I go to conferences, I want to go to as many panels/sections as I possibly can, learn as much as possible, and I feel that I "recharge" my academic batteries when I go to one -- I feel like delving right into new research, writing and reading papers, etc. Another thing that helps is that I'm really "multivalent" -- I am interested in many different subjects and areas and I don't just want to attend panels in my major area of specialization, on the contrary, I want to explore new things, new perspectives. I guess that ideally, that's what academic conferences should be all about. Except that... those are generally not the main reasons why many people attend them, and I'm not talking just of the job market aspect of having job interviews at the MLA because all other conferences don't have that in them.

Some of the things that I definitely hate in academic conferences is that they're organized primarily so that people can fulfill their requirements, enrich their CVs for either getting a job or tenure. Organizing conferences, chairing panels, giving invited talks, presenting papers, are all "requirements" of academic life, and I understand that this is the main reason why these conferences exist in the first place, which in and of itself is not bad. Except that when people are participating merely for fulfilling their requirements or padding their CVs, they only care about their own panels, and their own "friends," colleagues and area of specialization and don't "look around" at all to see what's going on with other people in the conference. I have a feeling that academic conferences (at least in the humanities) are not really as much for "advancing knowledge" as they are about getting together with the same people from your area, like "preaching to the choir" in the sense that people go there to talk to people who already know all about what they're doing and people who aren't already "in" feel left out and ignored.

I remember my first MLA in 2000 (Washington D.C.). I had been a graduate student for two years and took advantage of the fact that I have an uncle who lives in D.C. (now I have my BIL too) to go. So while my husband enjoyed his visit to the White House to see the very last Christmas decorations put up by Hillary Clinton, I enthusiastically went to the conference (as a result, I've never been to the White House). I attended primarily children's literature and Brazilian literature sections, and in the latter, I felt that the people there were part of a private, closed "club." They knew each other and were there to support each other's work. Of course this was more acute to me because as a Brazilian I know how people of my country (re)act. I also know that academic Brazilians are not the most agreeable people in the world -- on the contrary, they're often very snobbish and "exclusivist" (spell check is not recognizing this word, it might be a "transfer" from Portuguese -- do you get what I mean? Please let me know what a better word would be and I'll edit it).

This past October I went to my first conference of Brazilian studies, a fairly small interdisciplinary conference, which partly explains some of the problems that it had. Many panels had no attendees at all, or only one or two, like ours. This is very sad when people come all the way from Brazil to present (like my friend). The same happened at the MLA two years ago, though, some of the panels I went to on the last day of the conference had very few attendees. I understand that sections in the early morning or in the first and last day are harder for people to go to, but still, poor attendance also shows that when a subject is not fashionable, or is in a more "marginal" area like Brazilian literature, there aren't enough people interested in it. On the other hand, try to go to a talk by Toni Morrison, Spivak or any big names, and you will have to sit on the floor...

I know, it's like everything else in the world, you have the pop stars and the rest of us regular people... there are the movies who please the academy and get Oscars (and they often reflect the interests of those who vote for them) and there are the other films from around the world that are mere curiosities... I understand that, but it still makes me sad. Ideally, there would be room for everyone in the academic world, but one has to try and fit in. One has to try and work with a fashionable topic to be competitive in the job market. Then, there are the many things one has to do to get tenure... The person who was going to present after me at the MLA is not coming because she has to finish her book manuscript for publication... poor person, torn between two things that may help her get tenure, having to drop the "weaker" one.

I should be working on polishing my paper now, but I'm here writing this instead. I haven't decided whether I'll go meet the famous academic bloggers who are presenting on Saturday morning. I feel ambivalent about it... they don't know who I am, they're "pop stars" as far as I am concerned, and I don't want to be just a "fan," I want to be heard too... that's why I'm here in the first place.

But when I present at academic conferences, when I get published in the small journal that is the only one I have published in so far, I don't feel like I'm being heard at all. There are just too many voices and not all of them matter. Why then are we here? The folks in physics, chemistry, medicine, engineering, they may be really "advancing science," but what are we doing, those of us in the humanities, those of us who study literature?

So on the one hand, when I go to academic conferences I feel stimulated by all the new things I learn, I may meet a new person or two who share similar interests (really, I haven't met many more than that), and I truly love to be able to see what other people are doing and working on. On the other hand, I feel absolutely overwhelmed by how many of us there are, how little the work of every one of us matters to the others -- see, I do care, but the great majority doesn't. They have their own concerns, they're worried about their own papers, the job interview, the tenure requirements, the fashionable subjects, you name it, but there's not room for other people's new ideas.

Well, I just don't know what to do with all these feelings, but it does feel good to express them. Maybe this time it will be different? Maybe I have felt left out before because I wasn't presenting? Or maybe I'll feel even more left out because of that very reason, because I'm presenting but not really being heard. Well, I'll let you know either way. And I'm not worried about my own presentation. For one I'm not afraid of talking in public and I feel prepared. Second, I know that it doesn't really matter whether my presentation is good or bad, people won't really be listening, it doesn't really matter in the end... it's just a line in my CV, and I hate that idea (well, except perhaps if someone from the search committee which is interviewing me comes to see me, but I doubt that anyone will). I could go on, and on, in circles, so I'll stop.

P.S. Speaking of conferences, I know it would all be well if I were rooming with, or meeting up with Jo(e). Even if I had to be subjected to a nude photo section. I'm sure some people (for various reasons) don't face these dilemmas in academic conferences and have just endless fun. Someday... someday... after I have a job and the kids are grown and I have funds to go to conferences again, so I don't have to limit myself to those that are close by, like this year's MLA, or in places where I have aunts and uncles. (When I was still teaching I did have some funding and got to do some nice traveling, though).