"Life on Mars": SFRA Con report, Day 2 (part 1)
It was on Friday that I was able to place what felt so blisteringly alien about being at this academic conference: no one mentions Foucault. Or Lacan, or Marx, or affect. It's something I've heard before: Chicago is savagely isolated in its attention to theory.
Speaking of savage isolation, the conference is being held in the Crown Center complex, which is a complex of two large hotels and a mall. There's a plaza outside with a fountain, and you can see it through the glass walls of the mall, but there's no reason to go outside: everything you might want is here, and if it's not, there's internal walkways to some of the surrounding buildings. The complex has a sort of self-sufficient bio-dome feeling to it; the air has that recirculated tang. On the second day of the conference, I won't go outside at all. Later that night, the Crown Center administrators play E.T. on the plaza, and I can kind of see it from the hotel room where we're drinking.
But I haven't told you who "we" is, and for that I need to go back and fill in my first day con report. When I came and registered, got my name tag and all, I was quickly introduced by the ex-President of the SFRA to some younger professors. I knew they would be good people when one told us about a good t-shirt he saw somewhere: "Jesus Saves! The rest of you take full damage." Since then I've talked to some of the old guard, too, many of whom have been around for a while and have also known the younger people who have started to come regularly. As I once said, what I like about sf-people is that they're so nice and willing to talk -- and beer helps, too. I may not be the only grad student here, but I'm going to stick with my guess that I'm the youngest.
That first day I would see two papers and one panel. One person talked about Agamben. I wore dark blue jeans, and a black shirt with a tan blazer.
Speaking of savage isolation, the conference is being held in the Crown Center complex, which is a complex of two large hotels and a mall. There's a plaza outside with a fountain, and you can see it through the glass walls of the mall, but there's no reason to go outside: everything you might want is here, and if it's not, there's internal walkways to some of the surrounding buildings. The complex has a sort of self-sufficient bio-dome feeling to it; the air has that recirculated tang. On the second day of the conference, I won't go outside at all. Later that night, the Crown Center administrators play E.T. on the plaza, and I can kind of see it from the hotel room where we're drinking.
But I haven't told you who "we" is, and for that I need to go back and fill in my first day con report. When I came and registered, got my name tag and all, I was quickly introduced by the ex-President of the SFRA to some younger professors. I knew they would be good people when one told us about a good t-shirt he saw somewhere: "Jesus Saves! The rest of you take full damage." Since then I've talked to some of the old guard, too, many of whom have been around for a while and have also known the younger people who have started to come regularly. As I once said, what I like about sf-people is that they're so nice and willing to talk -- and beer helps, too. I may not be the only grad student here, but I'm going to stick with my guess that I'm the youngest.
That first day I would see two papers and one panel. One person talked about Agamben. I wore dark blue jeans, and a black shirt with a tan blazer.