La Lecturess

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Friday, October 28, 2005

More effusions

I worry that my posts have been unduly enthusiastic lately--but fuck, this conference is just incredible. I love these people. I'd been thinking I'd have to make friends with the younger folk in order to have something to do in the evenings--but in point of fact, the older scholars are just as crazy. (Which reminds me: should I really have addressed one of my fellow keynoters--a tenured prof at an R1 school and an expert on Neglected Author--as "motherfucker"? Perhaps not. But he provoked me, dissing on Northwest City like he did!)

The conference proper wrapped up today, and after seven papers, all kinds of grand plans to put together new editions of Neglected Author, and pledges of undying friendship, we went out to dinner and then took a booze-fueled moonlight walk through University City, visiting places that our boy had once lived in or patronized. And then, after one thing and another, we climbed up to the old city citadel, passed around a couple of bottles of champagne, and toasted each other extravagently.

Isn't this what the community of scholars is all about?


link | posted by La Lecturess at 11:34 PM |


4 Comments:

Blogger Ianqui commented at 6:44 PM~  

It's ok--enthuse away. Maybe it'll spread to the rest of us!

Blogger jo(e) commented at 10:48 PM~  

Damn, this makes me want to go to a conference.

Blogger Audre commented at 10:00 AM~  

I swear my jaw dropped in awe when I read this. This boozy scholarly comraderie complete with haunting your Neglected Author's haunts is (at least in my mind) the ultimate academic fantasy -- and it came true? These things come true? Really? Effuse away -- effuse for all of us.

Blogger La Lecturess commented at 12:59 AM~  

AA--it does happen, although this is definitely the first time it's happened quite this dramatically or pleasurably in my own career. There's another conference I go to annually that has come close, though.

Crucially, I think, is the fact that both conferences are/were pretty small & made up of people who work on less popularly-known writers (and who thus have a reason to bond intensely with each other). It probably also helps when the location is a bit remote--there's less temptation to do freelance sightseeing. But ultimately it's all about the group chemistry...and ain't no predicting THAT.

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