Wednesday, March 22, 2006
(9:46 AM) | Brad:
Leggo My Ego; or, An Exhortation to Conference Presenters
I hate academic conferences. Wait. Let me reiterate. I loathe conferences. I mean, sure, I like the free drinks and the availability of debaucherous sex that would've made residents of Sodom blush; not to mention the delightful moments when these two merge into the high comedy of watching somebody you otherwise respect getting far too drunk for his own good and then trying to get in the pants of an 22-year-old graduate student who clearly has eyes only for his/her advisor. Excluding this, I hate academic conferences.Oh, but I do love reading papers. Perhaps it is my ministerial background. (Yes ... that's right. I'm ordained. Laugh now, but one day I'll quit this blog, possibly after some off-the-cuff sexism, and I'll be free to call myself the "Reverend Doctor" -- or possibly "Reverend Love Doctor," 'cause then I'd kill w/ the ladies -- without the fear of being cut down by your derisive sneers [or, more likely, your cut-throat silence in the comments].) I really do enjoy standing in front of people, manuscript in hand, and projecting my baritone voice to the masses, all ten of them. I imagine myself like Orson Welles in Moby Dick, but without the humiliation of the rope ladder and the enormous gut. (Speaking of Orsen Welles, did you know that one of the reasons for his profound obesity late in life was that he insisted on eating for dinner, every day of the day, two steaks (cooked rare) and a pint of whisky. Now, that's living!) If not Orson Welles, because really he might be a wee bit histrionic at times, I imagine myself like Alain Badiou, whose presentation style, if not his presentation content, I consider to be the Platonic ideal. When last I read a paper, I sought to emulate him by planting my forearms on either side of the lectern and reading my paper in the least conversational tone possible. I was declaring something, something I spent a whole day writing, and by God they'd hear me out. I was like an itinerant preacher without a gospel.
Reading papers at conferences is not a time for humility. Save that for the Q & A. Save that for the drunken brawl between you and Dr. Tenure and Mr. & Mrs. Fellowship by the cheese tray -- i.e., let them win. Save that for the excuses of alcohol-induced impotence later with your fifteen-minute lover -- i.e., you needn't be satisfied to satisfy the other person, if you get my drift. When reading a paper, though, my advice is to turn into the ego-maniac you've always wanted to be, or that you repress. If you're already an ego-maniac and you never repress it, well, such is my after-school message for you: just be yourself.
You who are already ego-maniacs, as well a those who are adept at playing the part, might also want to use two well-honed responses in the Q & A. (1) When faced with a particularly difficult question, or at least one that is difficult only because it addresses something or someone unrelated to your project at hand and thus is intended only to put you and your ignorance of, say, Nagarjuna or Iris Murdoch, into the spotlight, thus ruining the finely-tuned egotism of the preceding twenty minutes, respond with: "Why you gotta be such a bitch? Next question." The collective gasp of the audience will likely remove the wind from your interrogator's sails, if only momentarily, giving you time to settle yourself and your ignorance for whatever comes next. (2) When faced with a sharp criticism phrased as such "I think you've failed to ___________," respond with: "No ... the real failure here is that of your imagination." Enigmatic references to imagination and aesthetics always score points, mostly because academics rarely understand the concept of either.
