Random Bullets of MLA 2024 (Philadelphia)

 Time for the MLA Random Bullets Roundup!

• First, despite the weather Philadelphia  was a good conference venue. The Marriott, Loews, and Convention Center were all close and within easy walking distance of each other. The Loews and Convention Center had had former lives as a bank and a train station, respectively, so it was fun seeing the traces of what they used to be. 
• There were, as always, a few directional challenges for your geographically inept correspondent—hidden escalators in the Loews, etc., but I used the usual strategy of following people who looked like they knew where they were going and eventually got there. 
• The book exhibit, though smaller than pre-COVID, is growing. There was space to get around and see the books, which wasn’t always the case in the pre-COVID crammed exhibits world.
• The MLA theme this year must have been something about emotion, or it may be that emotion is the new critical trend, because there were lots of panels about feeling. 
• “The — turn” must be on its way out.
•  I was, I confess, a bit taken aback that a profession that runs on being (1) “smart,” (2) critical, (3) hierarchical, and (4)  insanely and incessantly productive suddenly cares about feelings, even if it’s only to analyze them, but it’s an intriguing trend. 
• Maybe it’s like all the self-care & wellness & work-life balance programs we now get at the workplace, where you’re supposed to take MOAR time and add MOAR to your schedule to testify that you’re being relaxed and healthy in exactly the right quantifiable way. Their hearts are in the right place, but  . . . maybe not the outcome they're looking for.
  
• I saw in the program and heard about a session where people were to bring (or come as?) their favorite object but didn’t attend that one—perhaps it was a working group? 
• In terms of technology: the tech mostly worked, and people finally seem to have stopped being precious about using the microphone and started using it so everyone can hear. The Wi-Fi codes were published in a separate guide that I only received late in the conference; I couldn’t make it work, but that’s on me.
• Masking—maybe a third of the people were masked at any given time, which is a good thing. People sometimes commented about protecting vulnerable family members, etc., but really, no explanation is necessary or expected, which is a very welcome change. I wore my mask on the plane and in the airport, of course, and increasingly put it on during sessions, especially when I heard someone coughing behind me.
  
• There was a public awards ceremony, but it was really (when I went there to hear the remarks) more for awardees and their academic families, so to speak, so I left.
  
• The Big Meeting was unanimous on some things but contentious on others. The voting clickers stopped working, so voting was held by a show of hands (not a private ballot). 
• This conference seemed a bit less expensive than previous ones, or maybe it's that Reading Terminal Market and Trader Joe's made quick dining much easier. 
• Edited to add: I overheard someone, recounting to a newbie in the manner of the Ancient Mariner, that there used to be job interviews only at the MLA in the olden days before Zoom. There were doubtless still job interviews happening, but it wasn't as obvious as it used to be.
  

Other MLA Conference Posts:

• 2023 San Francisco 
• 2022 (Washington--virtual)
  
• 2019 Chicago
  
• 2018 New York
• 2015 Vancouver
• 2014 Chicago
• 2013 Boston
• 2012 Seattle
• 2011 Los Angeles
• 2006 Philadelphia
• Conference tips no one ever tells you
• Random conference thoughts

 

Random Bullets of MLA 2023

Figure 1. Marriott Marquis in San Francisco.

 Happy New Year! It's time for the (somewhat) annual MLA roundup.

The last MLA I attended in person was in Chicago (2019). I attended & presented at MLA 2022 virtually and attended but didn't present at 2021. I like virtual conferences, and as my Visa bill tells me this month, they're also a lot less expensive. (No reimbursements from Northern Clime.)

But on to 2023 San Francisco!

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• It's probably not news to anyone that the travel to San Francisco presented "challenges," as we now call problems. Southwest had just barely recovered from its scheduling meltdown when an "atmospheric river" unleashed a "bomb cyclone" of rain on the Bay area, right at and before--you guessed it--the exact time when MLA was scheduled to start. I lucked out by getting there just before everything hit, but the rain and wind were epic at times. 
• Because of travel and illness issues, I heard that some sessions scheduled to have, say, 5 people had only 2 show up. That can't be helped (except through virtual sessions), since even the mighty MLA can't control the weather.
  
• The MLA had the good sense to choose a main conference hotel--the Marriott Marquis--right across the street from the 4th St. Trader Joe's. How great is that? Instead of a soggy $15 breakfast sandwich, you could get food that you actually wanted to eat. The rooms had real mini-fridges so that you could stock up on salads or Diet Coke or other familiar treats. And the hotel actually honored the deal where if you were a (free) Bonvoy member, they waived the $14.95 internet fee.
  
• Speaking of technology, A+ for that! When I went up to the projector with my big bag o'dongles (HDMI, VGA, etc.--thanks, Apple!) ready to get set up, I discovered that the HDMI cable and connection were already at the podium, so there weren't any awkward cords. Audience members politely reminded people to lean into the microphone. And there was even a tech person coming by to make sure that we were all set up, that the screen actually showed what we had on our computers, etc.
• The conference venues (the hotel and the Moscone Center West) were good as well. The Moscone Center is cavernous, with ceilings about twice the height that you'd think is necessary, but that's just what you want in COVID times--social distancing. 
• I heard from other attendees that some of the hotel sessions were overcrowded but didn't see it at the conference center. Of course I got lost going from one to the other, even though they are literally like one block apart, but that's due to my terrible sense of direction and the lashing rain that made the street signs hard to see.
  
• The MLA sensibly mandated masks, and everyone I saw wore masks except when actually presenting papers. 
• The Big Meeting went smoothly and focused on issues of actual, practical use to the profession. I groaned inwardly when we were broken into small groups for discussion a few hours into the meeting, considering it cosmic payback for doing this in teaching, but the discussion was actually interesting.  

This doesn't address the many interesting sessions, but I'd be here all day doing that. 

Happy 2023!

Other MLA Conference Posts:

•  2022 Washington (virtual)
  
• 2019 Chicago
  
• 2018 New York
• 2015 Vancouver
• 2014 Chicago
• 2013 Boston
• 2012 Seattle
• 2011 Los Angeles
• 2006 Philadelphia
• Conference tips no one ever tells you
• Random conference thoughts

 

Random Bullets of MLA 2022

 It's become a (semi? quasi?) annual tradition to post from MLA, and although I skipped last year, here's what it looks like in this Year of Our Covid 2022.

• MLA was not virtual for a long time, but then the MLA gods started seeing the same astronomical COVID omicron spikes as the rest of us and relented: in-person panels could go virtual if they announced this by December XX. When my panel chair announced this and asked us our opinion, it took me less than 4 minutes to blast a reply-all saying "Please, let's do virtual, I beg of you, because there is a major pandemic" or words to that effect. We went virtual, and hooray! 
• I have been grateful about this every single day, and seeing 1700 to 2500 flights a day canceled because of terrible weather has increased my gratitude exponentially. I've spent enough time sitting on floors or scrabbling for outlets or eating stale sandwiches in SLC or MSP or DTW, or sitting on hold with airlines, in the best of times and felt I could skip that level of misery and anxiety this year once we went virtual.
  
• Unofficially, I've heard that about 80% of the panels are now virtual. Some are in person, and some have chosen to defer their panels until next year.
  
• What's the experience like? Fantastic! I'm attending lots of sessions, hearing smart people talk about interesting research, and really enjoying it. It's shaking up my brain, in a good way, and giving me lots to think about--and isn't that the point? And I'm buying more panelists' books now that I don't have to spend the money on travel--which Northern Clime doesn't reimburse.
  
• Better still, since we're all used to Zoom now, we know enough to mute sound and video, to do the little applause hands at the end, to share screen, and all the rest. And with Zoom, I can get up and pace around the room rather than sitting in an overheated conference room pinching myself to stay awake; it's much easier to listen, learn, and take notes when you have freedom of movement. 
• How can I say this? People are . . . better speakers, somehow, with Zoom. Everyone can hear the speaker--there's no harrumphing about being too good to need the microphone--and the transitions between speakers are really smooth, with no "my PowerPoint won't load" drama during which the audience kills time. And people are really prepared to keep within the time limits. Conversation is lively in the Q & A, and the rambling and posturing that sometimes mars sessions is kept to a minimum.
  
• There's always a bit of performative mourning about not being in person, not being able to spill out into the hall and continue the conversation there. Yet those conversations aren't always as inclusive as the conversations in the sessions, since only a few would be invited to join those hallway conversations. You can find community at a conference, they say, but there's also the isolation of being excluded from a group, of eating that sad, overpriced room service salad at the end of the day if you couldn't find dinner companions. At home, that clubbiness isn't being played out before your eyes. 
• At the end of the conference (tomorrow), there won't be a solid day of travel with the inevitable cold that I always catch; in 2022, that would come with added excitement--flight delays! omicron! swords and fisticuffs on planes!--that I can also do without. Instead, I can take a deep breath and get ready for spring semester.
  

We'll go back to in-person conferences, surely, so this little golden age of virtual conference attendance won't last. But for now, I'll enjoy virtual MLA to the fullest and try to look downcast as everyone laments the loss of the in-person version. 

Edited to add: 

• There seems to be less session-hopping on Zoom, and people are on time—but if you’re a couple minutes late, you can still get into the Zoom room without fuss and embarrassment. There’s no knocking on a locked door, or turning up at a session only to find the room full so you can’t get in to hear the speaker. This happens especially at celebrity panels—there was an Adrienne Rich panel at which she appeared years ago where there was an impressive overflow into the hall and no way to hear her—but it happens at other ones, too.
• I do like in-person conferences and being able to talk to people, go out to dinner, see the book exhibit, etc., but virtual is just fine, too.

Previous MLA posts: 

Other MLA Conference Posts:

•  2019 Chicago
  
• 2018 New York
• 2015 Vancouver
• 2014 Chicago
• 2013 Boston
• 2012 Seattle
• 2011 Los Angeles
• 2006 Philadelphia
• Conference tips no one ever tells you
• Random conference thoughts

Random Bullets of MLA 2019

Figure 1. A sunny Chicago in January--who knew?

Now it's the moment you've all been waiting for--MLA 2019 in bullet form!

The good: 

•  Weather. The last time I was in Chicago for MLA, the weather was, well, Chicago-ish: sleet, snow, ice, and long trudges up and down hill between the Sheraton and the Hyatt (or Hilton? it's a blur.) But look at those blue skies! If you were up early, the wind was biting, but some days got up to nearly 50. Also, after last year's snow apocalypse, there weren't as many people dazed from all the weather delays. Well done, Chicago weather gods.
• Great panels. I can't tell if MLA papers are getting more interesting, if I'm choosing which ones to attend with more care, or both, but there were terrific sessions. One trend: not only more DH panels, but the ones that were there were full. I tried to go to one early morning panel, but it was packed to the rafters and in a tiny room, so I left. After last year, I didn't attend any working groups, because once bitten, twice shy. 
• More panels than in previous years tried to follow accessibility and credit guidelines, with handouts or links, which is good. Here's a tip, MLA: maybe a space on MLA Commons where we can ALL post these papers so that people can follow along on their devices. I know that "not everyone has a smartphone" could be an issue, but it would help most people. 
• Also, I only heard one person try the "you can hear me without a microphone, right?" routine, which is privilege dressed up as false modesty, and he was gently encouraged to use the mike. 
• Book exhibit seemed more full and lively this year (possibly because of the snow last year) and just walking through there is enough to make you want to get to work. Lots of wine and snacks at booths, and I actually drank a glass of wine there at 3 in the afternoon. Don't let anyone tell you that academics don't lead a wild life. Also, some exhibits had the same deals online, which is helpful when you're traveling with a small suitcase (as most of us are these days) and don't have room to carry books back.
• Helpful convention staff. So, so helpful to have friendly people on hand to tell you which way to go to get to the rooms. There were 3 levels with multiple hallways (all underground), but all you had to do was ask and there were multiple people to tell you. 
• Jobs. Lots of conversations about precarious jobs and the lack of jobs, but not in the grim spirit of 2011.  
• Also noted: I didn't see a lot of obviously anxious job seekers--that may have been because interviews were at a different hotel--but in talking with people from departments that were hiring, I heard a lot of "We interviewed through Zoom/Skype and chose our finalists that way." MLA has encouraged online interviews to save costs and stress for job candidates, and it seems to be working. I'd be eager to see the numbers. Our 2014 dreams have come true!
• Great location, with easy walking to restaurants and also lots of cabs/Uber/Lyft. I liked being able to walk over the brass plates marking the original outlines of Fort Dearborn on my way to Starbucks.   

The okay:

Figure 2. We can see the wifi signal, but what's missing?

•  Wifi. Wifi was plentiful, and free, and good. What's wrong with this picture? After a momentary lapse into printing the password in the program last year, they didn't print it this year. You had to ask, or, as I did, consult the handwritten scrap of paper at one of the information desks, placed there by friendly people who nonetheless must have gotten sick of being asked for the password.
• Minibars.  The Hyatt hasn't gotten the memo yet that everyone prefers a refrigerator to a minibar, which is so 1993.

The not great:

• Nothing the MLA could control, really, but we had to walk by this every day. 



Figure 3. Hypnotized like a snake with a mongoose,
I couldn't stop staring at this.

 

 Other MLA Conference Posts:

• 2018 New York
• 2015 Vancouver
• 2014 Chicago
• 2013 Boston
• 2012 Seattle
• 2011 Los Angeles
• 2006 Philadelphia
• Conference tips no one ever tells you
• Random conference thoughts

Random bullets of MLA 2018

What was memorable?

•  New York City! How can you not love going to NY? Maybe it's different if you already live there or near there, but it's an exciting place to be even if you are among the hayseeds (that would be me) rather than the cosmopolitan cognoscenti. Going to a museum and becoming transfixed by a painting. Seeing a Broadway show (yeah, guess which one!). I had been there this summer in the same area and so was less prone to getting lost than usual. Yes, even on a grid system some of us will not know what direction we're walking in until we get to a corner.  
• The "bomb cyclone," because "snowpocalypse" is so 2016. Yes, it snowed a lot on Thursday, and a lot of people weren't able to get to the conference because of the wind and cancelled flights. If you were there and didn't have to get anywhere, though, it didn't seem so bad--that is, if you're used to snow and cold of 8-10 degrees. There were snowplows, shovels, and enough salt on the sidewalks to bring Carthage to ruins again.
• The conference hotel(s): Hilton and Sheraton. The hotels seem finally to have gotten the message that we'd rather grab something fast in a deli-like setting than sit down for a meal, and the Hilton had the perfect spot for that. Also: a real fridge rather than the dreaded mini-bar  whose sensors charge you if you move a bottle. This being NY, there were plenty of great restaurants as well as delis and supermarkets.
• Conference rooms: Decent room temperatures, lots of water to drink, and hotels very close together. Also, the wifi password was in the PMLA program this year, and the wifi worked!
• Mostly good sessions, with a lot more 4-person panels and roundtables than there used to be. Nobody grandstanding (that I saw) and droning on past their time. No one had to use the Hook. Unfortunately, I didn't get to see the BLM session with Harry Belafonte.
• Everyone loves to complain about people reading papers. But I went to a panel in one of the new 3-session "working group" formats that was 75 minutes of people randomly chatting about theory.  There were pauses. There were random generalizations. There were lengthy readings from theorists. In its reorganization a few years ago, the MLA killed off several of its standing sessions on authors, periods, etc., and I get why they thought it was a good idea. MLA also wants you not to read papers but to experiment with other presentation modes. But I would have killed for some tightly argued, highly focused papers in this session with a spirited discussion to follow. And this format gets three time slots per convention, proving, I guess, that sessions expand to fill the time available.   It'll be a while before I return to a "working group" session.
• The MLA is even acknowledging that it's becoming less central to the job market, now with Skype interviews and everything. That's a move in the right direction. 

Wait--I have been doing this for how long? Previous MLA roundups:

• 2015
• 2014
• 2013
• 2012 
• 2011
• 2006
• Conference tips no one ever tells you
• Random conference thoughts

Random Bullets of MLA 2015

• Nice weather!  Once the fog cleared, I realized that we were actually on the water, with breathtaking views of mountains across the bay.  Another plus: no ice on the streets.
• Downtown Vancouver as you see it from the convention center was apparently dropped wholesale onto the planet, buildings and all, starting in 1975, so all the architecture you could see from the conference site is interesting and new. 
• Hotels were close to the convention center and easy to find--big, distinctive, and with bright signs. If you've ever stood on a street corner at MLA wondering which way was which, having distinctive buildings is helpful. There were lots of good restaurants as well as a food court for quick meals. 
• Wifi password was prominently displayed in the hotel, and, saints be praised, the conference center wifi didn't require you to log in. This was the best conference yet in terms of being connected. 
• Also, and I don't recall this before: the convention center was loaded with smiling, helpful MLA people who could tell you which way to go to get to the room you wanted or the book exhibit.  A few years ago at one of the conferences, you entered the Convention Hall and the Twilight Zone simultaneously. You would see NO ONE as you walked down the dimly lighted hall toward what you hoped was a hall with rooms where the sessions were held, your heels echoing on the concrete floor.
• The panels and papers I saw were really good, with spirited but courteous discussion.  People stayed within time limits.  Could it be that the famed Canadian politeness extended to the conference atmosphere?  Or was it the red and green sheets of paper for signalling the panelists to be quiet?  I could figure out that red meant stop, but I never did figure out the green one: did it mean "2 minutes"? At any rate, it's an eco-friendly alternative to the red and green lights of MLA 2006.
• Here's a pro tip if you want to get your session accepted: call it "The ____ Turn." There were lots of sessions with that title. There also seemed to be numerous sessions on DH, on rhet/comp/writing, and on comics and games.  It's exciting to see the MLA opening up to these.
• I was hoping the issue of Skype interviews instead of conference interviews (which I favor) would come up somewhere and could get an official MLA endorsement, but apparently it didn't.
• If I were giving the MLA a granola bar ranking (granola bars being my go-to breakfast), I'd give this five out of five granola bars. 

Other MLA posts: 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011,  2006

Abolish the MLA interview? Sure, why not?

Dr. Virago and Miriam Burstein have posts up about Michael Berube's public Facebook post suggesting the end of the MLA conference interview in favor of Skype or phone first-round interviews and his follow-up post discussing the benefits.  Go see their posts and comments for a more comprehensive look at the idea.

Among the potential benefits:

• The obvious one of eliminating or cutting way down on the costs for job-seekers who go to the conference for the interview.  It's expensive to go to MLA, in terms of time and money both, and no, faculty members don't get their way fully paid.  
• What I love about this idea is that candidates wouldn't have to stress out about how they're going to pay for everything in addition to worrying about whether they're going to get an interview or not. 
• The possibility of interviewing more candidates than the 12 or so customary at the MLA.  
• If the MLA decided to discourage the conference interview, that should have some effect on quashing what Flavia and others suggest is the "prestige factor" for the MLA interview, as in "if we don't take a suite at an MLA hotel, candidates will think we're not serious about hiring." The MLA pronounces judgments and passes resolutions about a lot of things, and this would be one that would have a substantive effect. 
• The possibility of holding MLA in smaller cities, since the conference would be smaller.  MLA apparently doesn't make money on the conference anyway.

There'd still be campus interviews, but maybe universities could bring more candidates to campus (4 instead of 3, 3 instead of 2, or whatever) if they didn't have to partially fund a search committee's trip to MLA.

Also, if you're hiring in rhet/comp, creative writing, or other fields that have different major conferences (CCCC, AWP), this would bring those hiring processes into alignment with ones in more MLA-centric ones. 

Are there negatives? Maybe, but they're relatively minor ones:

• You might not get to hear candidates present papers at the conference, because that might confer an unfair advantage (wouldn't it?) if you met or saw in person a candidate outside the Skype or phone interview.  On the other hand, if you're on a search committee, you can barely leave the interview room as it is, and you probably can't attend a candidate's panel in any case.
• It's nice to meet a candidate in person and shake his or her hand. Well, yes it is, but is that preference worth putting the candidates through the expense of the process?
• Skype (or Google Hangout, or any of the others) isn't perfect; you get dropped calls sometimes, or Goofy Face Freeze Frame.  But if everyone is using something like this, the playing field will be level. 

I like the positive turn that this whole conversation is taking. On to Chicago!

Random Bullets of MLA 2013

Back from MLA 2013 in a cold but bright and sunny Boston. Random trivial observations:

• Great choices on the hotel sites. You could walk outside if you wanted to, but for those with health issues affected by the cold, like some of my colleagues, it was possible to get from the Sheraton to the Westin and other points via the giant mall.
• The giant mall meant more places to eat, get coffee, and so on, so there was less stress about grabbing a quick bite to eat. 
• Also good: no secret password for wifi--yay! Every year I go hunting for it, since it's not published, but this year when I asked at the registration desk, they told me there wasn't one.  That's a good way to increase access and engagement, so thanks!
• Really good panels, even if some weren't well attended. I don't agree with the commenter at Dean Dad's who said that MLA ought to count the audience and get rid of low-attendance ones.  Just as there's room for tentpole movies and small indy ones, at the MLA there ought to be the big sessions but also more focused ones so that people in emerging fields can connect with one another.  Does every panel have to draw the audience of The Dark Knight Rises? Also, are you really going to hold the Sunday at noon sessions entirely responsible if they don't draw a huge crowd?
• Like Dean Dad, I noticed a lot of Macs being used for presentations and also a lot fewer of the "I can't get this thing to work; I think we have to turn off the projector and reboot" or "It's showing on my screen; I don't know why it's not projecting" problems of yesteryear.  Is it that technology has evolved, that Macs are easier, or both?
• The signage was better, and there were a lot of people to help you find rooms. This sounds trivial, but when you're walking (lost) through a cavernous convention center or are trying to figure out which floor the session is on, having someone there eager to help makes a difference. 
• There were people checking badges this time, and not just at the book exhibit.  

On the more substantive side, Michael Berube and others put the focus on jobs and the state of the profession, which is where it should be. 

Random Bullets of MLA 2012

• Seattle, a no-snow and nearly a no-coat-needed city. Also, Pike Place Market, restaurants, and for the fans, two Starbucks stores on every corner. Great choice, MLA planners!
• Free wireless in the conference room block, in the well-lighted convention center, in the Sheraton session rooms--a godsend. The password was still a mystery for a while: It seemed to be passed from person to person, or so someone told me, and when I arrived at one session all ready to tweet it, I couldn't get in because I hadn't thought to ask someone for the password.
• Better spirits all around. Last year was all about the grim job market, or so it seemed. There was a lot of optimism in the air this year: better job market, enthusiasm about digital humanities, well-attended alt-ac sessions. People looked hopeful, or maybe it was just all that Starbucks caffeine causing those smiling faces.
• Really good sessions and papers.
• Lots of iPads and laptops, including use by presenters.
• Good tech support for presenters: there was a try-out room, and the technicians came by to check whether the laptops would project before tech-using sessions.
• Saw Rosemary Feal from afar at the big events and learned that her name is pronounced Fay-AL.
• Learned that the Twitter feed is best read judiciously, since it induces "I should have been there" session envy regardless of how fantastic the session is that you attended.
• Some sessions were tweeted by multiple people, but other great sessions weren't tweeted at all. Am not sure whether the tweeters are organized in some way so that the tweeting is distributed among sessions or whether they're all just voluntarily tweeting from sessions they'd be attending anyway.
• When people sit at the twitter/laptop table set up in the back of a room, I keep expecting them to hold up signs at the end of each paper: 5.5, 5.9, 6.0.

MLA 2011 and the Great Twitter Debate

First, go read the great post and comments over at Roxie's World about the role of Twittering at the recent MLA. Go ahead; take your time. You'll be glad you did.

It seems to me that Twitter does three things really well.

1. In normal times (i.e., not during a convention) it points you to other media and allows the Twitterer to promote him or herself in a gentle way: "Go read my blog post! My article! This link!"
   
2. In normal times, it conveys external news along with approval/disapproval/excitement about something that's currently happening: "Go read this article! Can you believe that a politician said this?"
   
3. In conference times, it's a way of collectively live-blogging a session that conveys some of the excitement and ideas of the session.
   

The debate over Twitter is about the last one of these. There's too much to condense, but here are some of the questions raised, with apologies in advance for overstating some complex issues:

1. Did the preponderance of tweets from digital humanities sessions create a sense that those were more exciting sessions that the ones that didn't get covered?
2. Did the fact that the tweeted sessions seemed to dominate the news coverage skew the sense of what was happening elsewhere at the convention?
3. Are some sessions just more tweetable than others, or do people at the untweeted sessions need to get with the program and (there are hints of this among the comments) be less stodgy?
   
4. Alternately, you know those bumper stickers that say "Hang up and drive"? There are some comments that suggest that tweeters put the computer away and just listen.
5. Finally (and this is a contentious one), does the tweeted/nontweeted session divide create another category of insiders and outsiders?
   

As someone who was there, went to sessions, and read the Twitter stream, I'm of several minds about this. On one hand, it was exciting to see commentary going on in real time, although I wondered in some of those sessions whether the presenters were disturbed by seeing people staring at laptop screens instead of at the front of the room--and whether others in the row were disturbed by the clack of keys. (Probably not.) It was also exciting to see accounts of presentations I didn't get to see because of commitments elsewhere.

On the other hand, in some sessions, the papers were so amazing and complex (yet eminently listenable) that I could barely take adequate notes on them; a tweet couldn't possibly have done them justice. This is not to say that papers that can be tweeted are too simple; I'm just agreeing with Roxie's typist's point:"Still, I admit to thinking that some of what is untweeted is really untweetable -- Certain kinds of presentations, certain modes of argument simply don't lend themselves to that kind of quick and dirty distillation, and I don't think that's bad." Sometimes, you're just sitting there in an intellectually stimulating stream of good ideas, and you just have to let your mind go with them.

So: Twitter at MLA-- yea or nay? It depends. It was great for what it did, but I don't think we can ignore the reservations that Roxie's World has specified, and I don't think the answer is necessarily "more Twitter for all!" To pull out one of my hoary old blog mantras, one technology or medium isn't going to work for everything, and expecting it to be useful in all situations (like those of the complex listen-only papers) is to strain it beyond what it can usefully do.

And anyway, you know that someone will sooner or later tweet a message to announce where the full version of those listen-only papers has been published. That's the power of Twitter.

Random Bullets of MLA 2011: the Fabulous, the Good, and the Okay

First, the fabulous:

• MLA Gods: Putting MLA in Los Angeles, home of palm trees and sunshine, when lots of us are struggling through an epic winter? Genius.
• Getting a hotel for us that was way beyond our humble expectations (remember, we're the people who will stay in dorms to save money)? Genius.
• Also genius: wifi, wifi, everywhere, although I had to get the SuperSecret MLA code for the JW Marriott lobby, which probably wasn't supposed to be secret but that I didn't get, from a kindly fellow MLA person tapping away on his computer.
• Yes, Virginia, there are kindly fellow MLA people, lots of them. They live in the hearts of academics even when you think that all anyone does is nametag-surf. I even saw people smiling on occasion and being helpful to people that they didn't seem to know, although MLAers usually roam only in packs or herds of the like-minded, for protection. Could the sunshine have been beaming down benevolence rays?
• Seeing spotlights in the sky and hearing the roar of the crowd at the Staples Center one night. No, it wasn't for a group of MLA bigwigs on the red carpet, but it was still exciting.
• Excellent panels, of which I want to single out Moose's talk on Thursday night, which was, well, fabulous--funny, organized, and right on point. You can read it at her place, so I won't talk more about it, but everyone loved it. I went to a lot of the "archives" panels, too, which were also excellent. There's a genuine excitement about the new ways we can "do" literary and other kinds of studies, and we heard about a lot of smart and interesting approaches. Don't forget, there's more of this going on today.
• Lots of good meetings with people and talks with old friends over meals.
• Seeing more people than I thought I even knew.

The Good:

• Lots and lots of places to eat close by, if you didn't want to seek out esoteric food.
• Did I mention the weather?

The Okay:

• Not a lot of places to get a quick sandwich or bagel, unless you wanted to join the long black-clad lines at Starbucks. Sometimes you just want to eat and get to the next session, but unless you could live on coffee or pastries (both of which I hate), you were out of luck.
• I have to confess that after a couple of the "hard times" panels, I heard some audience members say, "I can't take another one of these"--"these" being the panels on the grim news of the profession.

MLA, MLA everywhere

Is it just because I'm going to MLA this year that I'm noticing so many posts about it? Anyway, here are some posts:

• Moose at Roxie's World is going to be speaking in a blogging session, Session 150. I want to go to that session.
  
• Dr. Crazy makes some good points about the new family-friendly timing, namely that it's not so family friendly if you have kids in school. So far, I've been really happy that MLA isn't ruining Christmas as it usually does (Stress over MLA & presentations + an introvert's tendency to dread going to conferences = not fun times), but I can see her point.
• Sisyphus, on the other hand, figures that the timing is perfect.
• Meanwhile, back at the IHE ranch, Melissa Nicholas has found a way to make MLA job interview candidates stress out about whether they have the right clothing (a suit) to wear or not. She means well, but as one of the commenters said, the time to tell everyone this was about a month ago, not two days before the convention when all you can do is worry that you have the wrong clothes.
  
• For the record, I have been on and chaired several hiring committees, and I could not begin to tell you what anyone wore. What they said--yes. Whether they were prepared for the interview--yes. Whether they had exciting ideas for classes to teach--yes. Whether they wore a suit? Not at all, although I don't think anyone had a suit with a skirt. However, the IHE post did make me feel as though I ought to do an emergency shoe shopping trip tomorrow, since I understand that snow boots are not much worn in Los Angeles.
  
• The Little Professor will back me up on the "don't worry about the suit" idea. Actually, I am backing her up, since she posted about it first.
• Although she's writing about the OAH, Tenured Radical has a great post up about how to knock the softball interview question "tell us about your dissertation" out of the park.
  

And I know it's a big step, but since my paper is already in the hands of the respondent, I'm going to go computer-free at MLA (well, except for the iPad).

New MLA Handbook: Print. Print. Print. Print.

Ink asked an excellent question in the comments, so rather than hijack my own comments section, I'll write about it here:

I just heard about that yesterday and I don't really understand what is wrong with print being viewed as default...is it not PC, somehow? I don't have the new version yet, so maybe it's explained in great detail.

Frankly, I just don't want to type "Print" a billion times on my Works Cited. Especially since we're all trying to go green and that just makes the bibliographies longer...sigh.

I hadn't thought about the longer bibliographies issue, but Ink is absolutely right. Maybe the MLA thinks that taking away its requirement for long URL citations will balance that out. The MLA giveth, and the MLA taketh away. And once the varieties of e-readers (Sony, Kindle, Kindle reader for iPhone, and the various tablet readers that are on the way) get involved, I suspect that the MLA Handbook, and our bibliographies, are about to get a whole lot longer.

The MLA thought (and still thinks) it was important to specify the database, so we all do that, even though it seems unnecessary if you're citing a .pdf version of a print journal. Aren't they photographically identical? At least in the new version, you don't have to specify which library site you were in when you accessed JSTOR or EBSCO, which is an improvement (See 5.6.4). I can also see the necessity of specifying "Print" for the sciences, since so much of what they do is online, or for specialists in digital media areas within the humanities.

But for plain vanilla literature and literary history people? How many of the books you actually use, including new books, are available in any complete form online? (I don't mean Google's book snippets; they don't count.) In my field, that figure is about 3 out of 100, and I've looked assiduously (questia.com, netlibrary.com, books for the Kindle, etc.) to find books available in this form. Believe me, if they were available online, I'd be throwing money at them, since it would be so convenient to have them online.

Are there enough books online to justify this new MLA requirement of "Print" after what may turn out to be 97% of the books in a bibliography? What about the books you use; are they online enough to make this necessary?

[Updated to add: check out Ink's satiric post on this issue (link is above).]

The grass is greener, academic edition

After several years in a row of going to MLA, I'm glad that I didn't go this year. Grateful. Relaxed. Happy. Christmas was wonderful with the family.

And yet . . . lots of the cool kids are at MLA, so there's a little twinge that says "we're having a party, and you're not there."

Proof positive that academia is an addiction, don't you think?

Edited to add: I didn't realize that What Now and Sisyphus were there, too.

Blogging the "Meet the Bloggers" session

My meeting got out a little early, so I was able to catch the last two papers of the "Meet the Bloggers" session. Since others who were there for the whole thing will surely write about it (as will the bloggers themselves), I'll keep this to a few impressions.

Very Famous Female Blogger (I don't want to out her even by giving her blog pseudonym, but you can figure it out).

Connected blogging with her work in 18th-century publishing and the essay, especially The Female Tatler, possibly by a pseudonymous "Mrs. Crackenthorpe," which successfully competed for audience with the mainstream Tatler for a while and was published on alternating days with it.

Mentioned Habermas's "enabling fiction of the public sphere" and that we don't realize just how imperfect the public sphere is.

Her impressions (based on her blog survey) were that "most pseudonymous bloggers are who they say they are; if they say they are women, they are," etc.

Pseudonymity invites risk, but those who choose to publish pseudonymously are willing to take those risks in order to gain something greater (for early women writers, money).

Blogging is "a way for people who are marginal to be in the public sphere."

Mentioned in the Q & A about threats of "outing" a blogger: it's important to maintain the distinction between persona and writer.

Michael Berube

Praised The Valve's book events: "they rock."

"The state of book reviewing in our discipline is terrible" because of the delays in print publication, etc.

Discussed two "blogspats," one that occurred when he was accused of leaving a damaging remark on a grad student's blog. Noted that he didn't know it was a grad student & thought the person was "just a guy."

Second "blogspat" was "Burqagate," the flap over Ann Althouse's criticism of a blogger "because she had breasts" and Amanda Marcotte's photoshopping of a burqa-clad woman. (Look it up if you want more information.)

Discussed the ways in which leftists sometimes denounce even those on their side for not being severe enough in their denunciations (example: denouncing the people who denounced the Democrats who were too lukewarm in their denunciations of torture).

Blogspats: "junior high with hyperlinks." Gives us "important lessons about how to go about choosing sides."

My notes on the rest are too scattered to be of use (which isn't to say that these are of use at all, mind you; the good stuff is in their talks, not here.)

The room was packed--standing room only, and this at 8:30 a.m. on the last day of the conference, which is not, shall we say, a coveted time slot. (On my way to the session, I saw several rooms with 4-5 brave souls listening to speakers.) And why wouldn't it be packed? The panelists were smart, funny, and interesting, as you'd expect. There were non-pseudonymous bloggers in the audience who talked during the Q & A and, I'm sure, other chickenhearted pseudonymous bloggers like myself, who were there to hear thoughtful talk about blogging--and, probably not incidentally, to see the stars of the blogworld.

Random Bullets of MLA 2006

Yes, there was a nice holiday sandwiched in there somewhere (which I might write about some time), but for about 10,000 people right now it's all MLA, all the time here in Philadelphia.

The weather is nice, saints be praised. At an MLA in Toronto some years back, the temperatures fell into the minus digits, which made walking between the hotels considerably less than pleasant.

I wish I had a camera to take pictures of the Reading Terminal Market, which is right next to the main conference hotel. It's like Pike Place Market in Seattle, an old building converted to small open shops--fish vendors (though no one throws the fish here, at least that I've seen), bakeries, and lunch counters of all sorts. If you go, here's a tip: it supposedly closes at 6, but I observed many very unhappy countermen serving us clueless MLA types at 5:30 p.m.

The cliche really is true: the dress code is black, black, and more black.

It's nice to see people greeting their friends here. On the other hand, I've never seen so many people ready to give a cool, appraising stare without either smiling or looking away once someone meets their gaze.

Due to other commitments, I won't get to see the "Meet the Bloggers" session on Saturday morning with Michael Berube, John Holbo, Scott Eric Kaufman, et al. but hope that others will blog about it. (I feel fairly certain that the panelists will.)

Secret message to panelists: When you look up from your paper and start speaking extemporaneously, time does not stand still! The clock keeps right on ticking and cutting into someone else's presentation time. Really. I wouldn't kid you about this.

To try to curb Meandering Speaker Syndrome, the MLA has placed timers on all the tables and blinking lights on the podium. Green means that you have 3 minutes left, Red means that your time is up, and the next step is a trap door that opens beneath the speaker's feet and drops him or her into a dungeon. All right, the MLA hasn't perfected that last step yet.

An imaginary history of the MLA convention

Time: December 26th, some time in the twentieth century. Place: A wood-paneled faculty club, somewhere on the eastern seaboard. Three male faculty members are sipping sherry and smoking pipes. We catch them in mid-conversation.

Professor A: "I had a devil of a time getting out of the house too, Fred. Why, the children wanted me to play with them again today! What is it with this time of the year?"

Professor B: "My wife wanted me to stay at home, too--something about a holiday being family time. Don't they know I need to Think Deep Thoughts?"

Professor C: "And I'm even worse off. My wife hasn't had time to fact-check the citations for my latest article, and she hasn't typed a scrap of manuscript for me since this whole thing began!"*

Silence. Puffing of pipes and sipping of sherry.

Professor A: "Wouldn't it be wonderful if we could get away and talk to each other about something that mattered, like scholarship, instead of being at home with the family?"

Professor B: "That's a great idea! We could stay away until all the mess was cleaned up and return just in time for New Year's Eve."

Professor C: "We could meet in New York, or maybe sometimes in Chicago, for those on the West Coast. We're already in the Modern Language Association; how about holding that meeting right after Christmas? We're all free then."

Professor A: "It would get us out of the house."

Professor B: "No more messy family time!"

Professor C: "It's a good thing that no women would be going to this convention. Why, their heads would explode, if they had to get ready for Christmas AND get ready for MLA."**

All: "A woman at the convention? Hahahahahahaha!"

And that, dear friends, explains why many of us will be getting up at the crack of dawn to fly to distant cities in about a week.

Updated from the comments:
(from Anonymous)

Sally: Now WTF am I going to do with my kids on Jan 4 when they should be in school and I have to go to the New Improved Women Friendly MLA??


**********

*Seriously. I heard a grad director say once that it was good for grad students and faculty members to be married, so their wives could type their papers for them.
**Seriously. Why do you think I'm writing this at 4:30 a.m.?

Conference papers: the good, the bad, and the "don't even think about doing that"

To judge by their exposure on blogs and in the MSM, there are two kinds of articles about conferences, neither of which focuses on the true substance of the papers being presented. The first is the kind that runs in newspapers late December every year right alongside the perennial "Drive Safely--It's New Year's Eve!" articles. It's the "silly titles at the MLA" article in which the reporter shakes his head over the Death of Literary Study or the decline of western culture. There's one of those over at The Valve right now.

The second kind is the "why, oh why, are conference papers read so badly?" piece, and one of those is online at the Chronicle . William Major, the author, recounts his experiences of reading papers to small audiences and of seeing a panel chair fall asleep. Here's a memorable excerpt from the piece:

"Yet it was during one such sleepy lecture that I witnessed a moment of intellectual honesty as an undergraduate at the University of Kentucky. The late eminent Guy Davenport -- writer, scholar, Renaissance man -- was in attendance at a reading and made his presence known by sprinting from the room in the middle of the proceedings, an exit so conspicuous and theatrical as to overshadow all that the poor lector had to say that evening. It was a night that I am certain lives on in the audience's memory, though the lecture itself has long been forgotten."

Major concludes in the usual way, by asking his readers to remember the audience, wondering why conferences are necessary, proposing stricter standards for accepting papers, suggesting that panels with small attendance sit in a circle and talk [which often happens, as far as I can tell], and so on. He also suggests that only completed papers be accepted, which I think will probably never happen because (take your pick) (1) people are too busy to write papers until just before the conference or (2) people enjoy the brinksmanship aspect of writing a paper at the last minute and being able to say that they wrote the paper on the plane.

As a conference veteran, I have a couple of examples to put in the mix.

The Good

1. A few years back at MLA, I saw an excellent presentation in which everything went wrong for the presenter, a major scholar. His paper had been lost with his luggage, so he announced that he'd read the paper from his laptop and turned the computer on. The computer refused to boot up. He tried again. Nothing. Tried again. Nothing. Instead of being shaken by this, he went on to present the ideas in his paper lucidly and brilliantly, periodically (and without comment) attempting to turn the computer on. It was the best paper I never had read to me.

2. At this past MLA, one roundtable session had rules that seemed beyond byzantine when they were explained to the audience: the presenters had to read their papers, ask a question of the next panelist, field a question, or something like that. The audience looked puzzled at first, and yet it worked beautifully. This format kept the basic structure of reading short papers, yet the questions and so on broke up the "listening to papers" trance and made the session a lively and thought-provoking experience.


The Bad

1. The "long-winded presenter" phenomenon is almost too common to mention. I love the touching faith implicit in general advice to chairs such as "keep track of the time" and "prepare a 5-minute warning card and pass it to the presenter." Once I saw a presenter handed such a card. She ignored it. The chair tugged at the presenter's coat. She ignored it. The chair cleared her throat. The presenter glanced at the chair, took another drink of water, and kept going. Some presenters just won't quit.

2. I've also seen panel chairs give an "introduction" to the session and its theme that's almost as long as a paper, thus crowding into the last panelist's time.


Don't even think about doing this

These should probably be under the heading of "the bad," but perhaps they don't bother everyone. They do bother me.

1. Situation: The speaker gets up and starts reading. She (or he) announces that the title has changed, that it's from a larger project, blah blah, the usual stuff. Okay. Now she begins to read, and after a few pages stops. You can see her reading ahead in the text. She flips a page. Flips another page. Scans some more text as though someone's just handed it to her off the AP wire and she's never seen it before. Flips another page. The audience members sit there, watching her, until they get bored and start leafing through the program. Finally she starts speaking again, having wasted what should be 2-3 minutes of her time but will probably end up being 2-3 minutes of the poor last panelist's time.

Comment: You have had from six to nine whole months to cut this paper down to size. Please, please get it into reading form and practice it the night before.

2. Situation: The speaker has heard all that advice about talking about rather than reading a paper. [Note: I don't agree, for the most part. Many of the "spoken" papers I've heard have been much more rambling and harder to follow than the "written and read" ones.] He decides to "talk" his paper in this fashion: He reads a sentence and then looks at the audience to deliver a comment about it--what he found, how this relates to something else, where it fits in his larger project, etc. He reads another sentence and talks about it. Over and over again.

Comment: If you want your audience to think that they are living in your paper for eternity, this is a good way to go.