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Last year, I tried to attend the Modern Language Association convention – I was on a panel and everything – but a nor’easter had other plans and I never made it to New York.
Things look clear in Chicago for travel later this week, so I’m confident this is the year that I attend my field’s largest disciplinary gathering for the first time. I started graduate school in 1994, so maybe I should consider this a kind of commemoration of 25 years in at least English-adjacent work.
And because it’s going to be in the same place at the same time, I figured I’d pop into the American Historical Association meeting[1] as well, just to see what’s doin’. I’ll be credentialed as “press” through Inside Higher Ed (don’t laugh).
While I feel like I’ve had at least half-a-dozen different lives within this world (with more still to come), when it comes to something like MLA, I’m a newbie. With AHA I don’t even know enough to know what I don’t know.
I’m not totally unprepared. I’m a Chicago-area native and lived in the city of and on for a number of years. I know how to navigate the El, the proper footwear for walking, the kind of coat I will need.
I will be bringing a larger suitcase than necessary to account for the books I anticipate returning with.
Right now, I only have a couple items on my dance card. I’m planning on attending a Friday happy hour in honor of HASTAC[2] because I want to thank Cathy Davidson in person for endorsing Why They Can’t Write: Killing the Five-Paragraph Essay and Other Necessities.
On Saturday from 4-5pm, you can find me at the Johns Hopkins University Press booth (426) at the Hyatt exhibition space along with Kathleen Fitzpatrick, director of Digital Humanities and a professor of English at Michigan State University and author of the imminently forthcoming Generous Thinking: A Radical Approach to Saving the University.
Beyond that, my goal is to see worthwhile and interesting things that I can report back to the world in the form of a future blog post or two. I’ve got some events I’ve scoped out, but I’m open to hearing from others about what I should see.
This is where you come in. In the comments (or you can Tweet at me @biblioracle) please tell me what I should see and do at both the MLA and AHA conventions.
Feel free to pitch your own panel or those of a colleague or friend. Be not shy about it, but also consider including why the panel may be of broader interest to someone (like me) who sits somewhat outside the mainstream.
And tell me any other convention-related activity that may be of interest. Where are the good spots to lurk and learn? What are the rituals and behaviors I should be on the lookout for?
Highlighting your favorites in the comments might just help spread the word to other readers as well.
Guide me, experienced ones.
[1]First possibly dumb question of many: Is there a difference between a convention, a meeting, and a conference?
[2]As a New Year’s resolution, I finally joined the group. (You can too.)
