BTW, a good recent article on the vicious, negative stereotype of the American college professor that keeps recurring in formula-film after formula-film: William Deresiewicz, "Love on Campus" (in Phi Beta's The American Scholar). (Didn't any of these hack writers, directors, producers, etc. go to college, and study and socialize with some good professors while they were there?)

--Regarding today's title. As to the debate that seems to exist in the blogosphere about whether the Kalamazoo conference is a Good Thing or a Bad Thing (see 1066 And All That for definition of terms), I can only speak from my own experience--after conceding the glorious entertainment value of Herr Professor Doctor Korncrake (see blog list on the right of this page).  I first walked into the lobby of Harrison-Stinson, which used to be the registration lobby for the conference, in May of 1992. The first event that transpired in front of me was that a prominent Chaucerian, whose name will be kept in confidence (although it is C. David Benson), whipped out a mini-super-soaker pistol and proceeded to irrigate those present in the assembly.

This caused me to think two things: one, this wasn't the MLA; and two, this was my kind of place.

Some of the denigration of the conference may stem from a lack of awareness of its origins. Kalamazoo started as a grad-student conference; since it preserves that aspect to this day, and is open to papers from grads, faculty (among whom I include librarians), undergrads, independent scholars, Monty Pythons--

                                             

and even administrators, it follows that the papers' quality varies from stellar to beginner-level. IMHO, there is not much wrong with that, once one learns to navigate the conference program and fish out the most promising sessions (or, usually, speakers) to attend. The only real problem is that as the conference has grown, it seems inevitable that we will have to start imposing some steps to restrict the scope of the operation; evening and Sunday-morning sessions are already a sign that we are hitting the wall.

I've been back every May since 1992, and can't imagine missing even one year. Not only did my first visit cement for me the determination that I am, and should be, a career medievalist, but in subsequent years the conference sustained me not only through the uncertainty of the job market (and then, through the miseries subsequent to actually getting my first job), but provided a gravitational draw that helped keep me in my field of interest, rather than becoming isolated in the comic-opera struggles that demand so much of one's attention at the typical institution (e.g., explaining, over and over again, that the bookstore should stock some actual books, beside textbooks; or, that the doctorate has in fact been expected of permanent faculty for gosh, some little time now; or, that four-year colleges are generally expected to teach foreign languages, plural; ad nauseum). This is all apart from having made and kept the best group of friends ever to come my way since undergraduate days--people of all ages, many former walks of life, nationalities, and what have you.

These results might, arguably, have come about by regular attendance at other conferences--but other major conferences can't come close to Kalamazoo's grad-friendly price, which draws both students, junior faculty, and overseas visitors in plenty. It's conveniently located to most of North America, and the weather in early May is nearly always some form of bearable.

Since some of the antiZooian heresy seems to imply the subtext "I think MLA is much better," let's unpack THAT notion here. Although I feel like Jon Stewart at this point: "Do I really even have to do the rest of this bit?" Most of you already know what there is to say about MLA . . .

"A Superhero's Perspective on the MLA"
"Conference Man Returns to the MLA"
"The Scary Place"

Disclaimers need be made first. For one thing, the MLA bibliographers, and their product, are stellar, and give literary studies a major research edge over some other humanities fields. For another, in just the last couple of months I have both served as a manuscript reader for MLA, and had a letter accepted for publication in their Newsletter--so, I am hardly "against" the MLA, and would not like to be read as such. None of the following criticism should be taken to apply to the regional MLAs, which get consistently high grades from attendees, nor the scholars on the various MLA interest groups or in officer functions, who obviously work hard to do a good job. But:

MLA is generally located on/near one coast or another at the peak of the holiday season. Because we have usually boycotted the southern states due to someone's idea of a political consensus, we also tend to meet above the freeze line, in winter. The hotels are major city conference venues, where coffee starts at $2 and the drinks are rarely free (you don't hear people gripe about that aspect of Kalamazoo much--only the quality of the free beverages on offer, generally while sucking them down like a drought-stricken cornfield). Contrasted with Kalamazoo's inconsistent paper quality, MLA's tend to be consistently dull in too much of my experience, with few if any questions, or time allotted for discussion--people are consistently allowed to go overtime, a conference faux pas that all of us who preside at Kalamazoo sessions take great delight in terminating. The field of modern languages and literature is so large that, inevitably, barely any sessions are scheduled on any given topic in which one has a specialist interest--likewise for the book display.

Some of the antiZooian heresy snipes about hierarchy, and people's awareness of status distinctions. At Kalamazoo? Compared to MLA? Puh-lease! Two years ago, the 'zoo registration had a computer glitch and printed most people's badges with name only, no affiliation; after a brief period of disorientation, most of us assumed it had been intentional, to help conference-goers relate more readily as individuals--and we went on to do so, with gusto. (Here's a Gedankenexperiment for you: try to imagine an MLA without affiliations on the name badges . . . now there's a mission for an academic hacker with a taste for mischief! A different form of badging was imagined by my late professor David Fowler, of the University of Washington, who always shuddered at his recollection of MLAs past. When there, he visualized the scholars he saw walking down the halls as characters from Renaissance morality plays, with placards around their necks reading "Wrath," "Envy," "Lust," etc.)

But all of that is small potatoes; I myself have been known to enjoy some or much of MLA, with the chance to see old friends, catch up on whatever the modernists think is important this week, and so on.  The biggest negative at MLA is the obvious one, which MLA can do little or nothing to ameliorate: the thrice-cursed job market. I am not referring to the sweats one has as an interviewee, nor to the different but also great stress of being the interviewer, hour after hour and day after day--both of those, roles I have played before and may well again. I mean the manner in which the anguish of the job market pervades every meeting, every room, every conversation, every dinner party, and everything. No-one who has the compassion of an irate Velociraptor can bear, with equanimity, the suffering all around one of scores of brilliant, hard-working young people--people astronomically more able than many of their employed predecessors--who do not have, and never will have, much of a chance at secure employment in a profession to which they have already given their all. And all the conversations at MLA seem to come down to jobs, jobs, jobs--who's interviewing, who's not, who's on a search committee, and on and on and on.

At Kalamazoo, it happened a few years ago that some well-meaning people (friends of mine, in fact) arranged to interview for a specialist position for a medieval scholar. Logically, it was a sensible and cost-effective thing to do; but it has never happened again in any formal way far as I know, and my impression was that a nearly-instant consensus came about: one of the good things about the Zoo is that we don't want to deal with the job market there, and don't want interviews held there, ever (although May is a good time to find out who's retiring--but that information fills aspirants with happy thoughts, rather than the other kind). Employed or not, for a few days all of us rejoice in our common cause, and our little band of brothers and sisters---and, if someone starts to mope about anything, you can just hustle them off to the next reception for a hands-on demonstration of what "malt does more than Milton can."

John Gravois' recent fine piece in the Chronicle (subscribers can read at chronicle.com, "Knights of the Faculty Lounge"--don't forget the podcast, which is the best part) gives a pretty decent idea of what the event is like, for one who has never been there. And that is true even though my insightful commentary and rather "Saturday Night Fever"-esque photo on the dance floor ended up on the cutting-room floor. (But I bet I can cajole a copy out of the photographer--stay tuned.)

The Chron did, however, give me a nice write-up when they dubbed me "the Evangelist of the AAUP." You will be hearing more about that sort of thing in due course.