Saturday, January 5, 2013

live blogging the HDC, day 2

English: Derrida's grave, Ris-Orangis, France ...
English: Derrida's grave, Ris-Orangis, France Nederlands: Derrida's graf (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

  1. A good paper! 
  2. Lunch with a colleague. Life is tough all over. 
  3. Frantic texts vainly trying to schedule meetups.
  4. Brief shopping trip! 
  5. Keynote panel!  Everyone on it male, white, old.
  6. Someone quotes the only sentence from Famous Difficult Theorist that everyone knows.  We do not give you credit for having read the rest of "Of Hamsterfurology". 
  7. A probably excellent paper that I couldn't follow.
  8. Visit to hotel gym.  Quite nice really; very little wear on those machines.
  9. Several earnest grad student papers, good stuff, marred only by their authors' terror. 
  10. Dinner with grad school colleagues and faculty.  It's wonderful.  An entirely unmixed pleasure. 
  11. Party! Everyone cheerful again, talking very loudly.  Cash bar. The chips are free.  


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19 comments:

  1. StrelnikovJanuary 5, 2013 at 4:21 AM

    Auferstanden aus Ruinen
    und der Zukunft zugewandt,
    laßt uns Dir zum Guten dienen,
    Deutschland, einig Vaterland.
    Alte Not gilt es zu zwingen,
    und wir zwingen sie vereint,
    denn es muß uns doch gelingen,
    daß die Sonne schön wie nie
    über Deutschland scheint,
    über Deutschland scheint.

    Glück und Friede sei beschieden
    Deutschland, unserm Vaterland.
    Alle Welt sehnt sich nach Frieden,
    reicht den Völkern eure Hand.
    Wenn wir brüderlich uns einen,
    schlagen wir des Volkes Feind.
    Laßt das Licht des Friedens scheinen,
    daß nie eine Mutter mehr
    ihren Sohn beweint,
    ihren Sohn beweint.

    Laßt uns pflügen, laßt uns bauen,
    lernt und schafft wie nie zuvor,
    und der eignen Kraft vertrauend
    steigt ein frei Geschlecht empor.
    Deutsche Jugend, bestes Streben
    unsres Volks in dir vereint,
    wirst du Deutschlands neues Leben.
    Und die Sonne schön wie nie
    über Deutschland scheint,
    über Deutschland scheint.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. StrelnikovJanuary 5, 2013 at 12:15 PM

      No love for the East German Anthem, I see.

      I find it less lugubrious than "Deutchland Ueber Alles."

      Delete
    2. Middle-Aged and MoroseJanuary 5, 2013 at 1:34 PM

      well, the East German judge did give it a "10".

      Delete
  2. CindyJanuary 5, 2013 at 11:09 AM

    What is an "unmixed pleasure"?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Merely AcademicJanuary 5, 2013 at 11:23 AM

    Also, thank you, Metropolis police department, for the six-car sirenfest outside between 3 & 3:30 last night. I''m sure none of us needed the sleep.

    ReplyDelete
  4. AnonymousJanuary 5, 2013 at 12:02 PM

    You are an excellent conferencer...my occasional visits to those things are much more debauched.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousJanuary 5, 2013 at 12:13 PM

    12. I wake up in someone else's room. He says he's a grad student in Polymorphous Anthropology and Witchcraft. We're eating bagels that he stole from the people at Pearson.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Middle-Aged and MoroseJanuary 5, 2013 at 1:36 PM

    As a grad student at HDC I always just went to bed with a stack of new books to read. I obviously was doing something wrong.

    Now when I go to HDC I wake up with my wife, and a stack of new books, which really is the best of both worlds!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. AnonymousJanuary 5, 2013 at 3:53 PM

      You take your wife? In all of my years at various conferences, I've never met a spouse.

      Oh, do you have an academic spouse? That would make sense.

      But I don't know how academics marry other academics. That's a mystery to me.

      Delete
    2. The Contemplative CynicJanuary 5, 2013 at 5:20 PM

      Instead of children, we academic couples breed contempt. :)

      Delete
    3. New England NatalieJanuary 5, 2013 at 9:03 PM

      My non-academic spouse loves conferences. She says they're just like science fiction conventions only more nerdy and with less interesting costumes.

      Delete
    4. Edna ExpatJanuary 7, 2013 at 3:14 AM

      I submit that the key to a good academic marriage is to pursue a match that's outside (way, way outside) your own discipline. Dr. Hubs and I are polar opposites in terms of field, which gives each of us a very, VERY different experience of academia overall.

      Sometimes I go to his conferences, but he has yet to accompany me to mine, mostly because he prefers European associations while I use my conferences to keep half a foot in the door back in the States. But it's still not a fair comparison--his field has the BEST locations; meanwhile, one year I had the option of going to Minneapolis in March. Um...no...I think I'll play spouse for Hubs' meeting in Lisbon instead!

      Delete
  7. Middle-Aged and MoroseJanuary 5, 2013 at 5:51 PM

    I only go to HDC when it's in the city where I live, or if it's in a city where my wife and I would like to travel, generally Boston or New York City. Then we make it part of a vacation. My wife goes site-seeing while I'm in sessions and we spend the evening together. And she's not an academic. Good thing, because she makes more than twice what I do!

    ReplyDelete
  8. Richard Tingle, PhDJanuary 5, 2013 at 8:42 PM

    13. Tried to return the panties
    I found on the TV.
    Chagrined to find,
    that they wouldn't fit me.

    ReplyDelete
  9. UnknownJanuary 5, 2013 at 9:34 PM

    It's amazing how applicable Merely Academic's observations are to my own HDCs from 20 years ago, when I went annually (pre-TT at a CC). It was neither the AHA nor the MLA, but the panels, parties, and other details are remarkably apt. The only thing we didn't have then was the texting.

    MA, I particularly liked this: "Someone quotes the only sentence from Famous Difficult Theorist that everyone knows." Does every discipline have one of these?

    ReplyDelete

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