1. What are the different kinds of academic gatherings? Pros and cons...
- Large scale symposia, conferences, annual meetings: widely advertised to all-comers, verging on a congress, usually international in scope.
- Colloquia small scale academic gatherings on a focused topic - usually starting with a keynote speak, one-day full of papers, ending with a round-table discussion.
- Workshops: usually involves a "hands-on" intensive undertaking, rolling-up the sleeves. The idea is that all participants participate actively in the undertaking, and there is usually no audience. An intimate gathering of "experts", sometimes involving a small group of thinkers. Sometimes also called "seminars" (a bit misleading).
2. The process: the intellectual groundwork
- The idea: what makes a good conference theme? These are some things people have done:
- Kurt Rauflaub style: A theme such as "war and peace" or "epic and history" with representatives from each field of the ancient world. A comparative approach.
- A theme that interrogates an influential work in the field
- "Corrupting Sea" colloquium that took place at Columbia
- But anyhow, be interesting and cutting-edge, open and inclusive, focused and incisive (cutting through the discipline/field, giving a good cross-section).
- Call for Papers or invited speakers?: A matter of debate.
- Discussants, respondents, and the immediacy of intellectual challenge to presented papers... How does a good discussion pick up?
- A keynote speaker that is a major figure on the very theme of the conference. The keynote address should provide much food for thought, but then the speaker stays on and oversees the rest of the event with critical eyes. Note the performance of Bruce Hitchner in Highways and Byways, Tim Ingold in Material Worlds.
3. The process: logistics
- Space: find the best kind of space in which the audience will be comfortable, have writing space in front of them. Don't imprison them to bare chairs and expect them to stay. Joukowsky Forum in Watson Institute and Macmillan Hall 115 are good places. This is very very important.
- Technical issues: audio-visual equipment. Get every participant's needs. Make sure to get the system password from the media services people.
- Among the organizing committee, a clear sharing of responsibilities is crucial. Who contacts speakers? Who picks them up at the airport?
- Travel arrangements for the speakers and their accommodation should be taken care of well. Troubleshooting: what happens when we have a snow storm (perpetual problem for Providence)?
- Make a website in a timely way. That's a great way for participants to connect to the event and be excited about it. When abstracts are posted, a dialogue already starts, and people start to twist their own papers according to what they see on the website. The website is a good storefront.
- Advertise well, depending on the kind and amount of audience to be drawn to the event.
- An elegantly phrased introductory remark (usually less than 15 minutes) always allows the event start with excitement, energy and good feelings.
- Presenting the speakers: don't read people's cvs but try to say something interesting and unique and human about each person.
- Good food, lots of coffee: feed your guests well. Symposia are a form of feasting.
- Financing: how do you plan to cover the costs?
- Publishing: how do we go about materializing the "results" of an academic gathering? Or should we at all?
Discussion:
- Princeton-Brown Archaeology Graduate Student Gathering in Fall 2008?
- A formal graduate student conference?
- A gathering in which more advanced grad students make brief presentations of their dissertation-related work? Maybe four 20-minute presentations from each side?
- We could overlap this event with a visiting lecturer here at the jiaaw?
Resources:
Ephemera:
Large scale conferences usually end with a communal photo. Why? Hard to tell. But it is always fascinating to look at these photographs, a mass of academics smiling at the camera with their name tags shining.
