I don’t go to many academic conferences any more. Perhaps when I make some substantial headway on my next major research project I will hit the conference circuit again, but for now my writing and speaking has focused more on popular audiences.
Yet I do believe academic conferences are important. While I was a graduate student I attended them and presented at them frequently. Back then I could have really used an essay like Eszter Hargittai’s “Conference Do’s and Don’t’s.
I have never been much of a cold-turkey networker so I would spend conferences trying to attend as many panels as possible. I would feel guilty if I did not attend a session during every time slot. I never really tried to meet important senior scholars in my field because I had a strong aversion to sucking up to them. These scholars are busy and don’t need a bunch of young sycophants following them around in the hopes of getting them to read a dissertation chapter. So rather than trying to find a seat at a high powered dinner, I was more than satisfied eating with graduate school friends who, like me, were on a budget.
According to Hargittai, I did absolutely nothing right. I was clearly not getting the most out of my conference experience and was not advancing my career in any significant way. I can’t disagree with him.
The bottom line is that conferences have never been my thing. I hate the name-tag staring, the pretentiousness, the bombarding of book editors with half-baked proposals, and the general parading of the professional classes in the halls of big city conference centers. When I go to a conference today I normally attend one or two conference sessions a day, hang out with friends, spend considerable time in the book exhibit, meet with a few younger scholars who have contacted me in advance, try to see some sites in the city, order room service, and occasionally take a nap.
I prefer to take in the conference on my own terms. It is less stressful.
Conferences are most certainly what you make of them. Sometimes you feel so pushed and pulled that they're no joy. Other times, when you work them at your own pace and follow your own agenda, they can be a revelation. I think the problem with most is that they seem to follow an entertainment agenda: no down time for reflection and conversation, papers crammed into slots, little dialogue, etc. That modern drive for efficiency destroys the mind's ability to work freely. Some agenda is good, but too much structure squeezes out free play. – TL