Friday, 22 May 2009

may 21st - the conference starts


The first day of the conference was workshops , followed by the opening address in the main Union building ballroom. People went off to different workshops and I stayed in my attic eyrie at Gloria's bed and breakfast to do a 'tech check'. There has been some technological crisis with this conference and although I can't quite figure out how it happened that all technical support was withdrawn, it meant that because all of our presentations except one use images , film and/or sound as well as written/spoken words we had

to bring all our own equipment. We carried two data projectors, two apple macs and a loudspeaker all the way to the mid west of America, how mad is that!!
Equally Cindy, who lives in California, brought her macbook and a data projector from work too. The good news was that none of the projector bulbs had blown whilst we were travelling, but everything had got out of sync and had to be realigned. Then we discovered that Cindy's workplace had given her the wrong connecting gizmo from the projector to the computer.... off to the Apple store and back!! Altogether a bit of a pallaver, but we are all fixed and know what we are doing.
In the afternoon session I went to Laurel Richardson's workshop 'Just three words' which was both useful and fun and surprising. As always, Laurel gave me some ideas that I might use in teaching on 'writing as inquiry'.
I have learned from experience that at North American conferences the word 'workshop' can be misleading and can often mean somebody talking about their work for three hours instead of 20 minutes, but in Laurel's case it was most genuinely and playfully a thought-provoking workshop that gave us all a chance to work on our writing, hear from each other, etc.
Laurel Richardson- although this photograph was taken earlier, she's changed her hair colour to quite a vivid red since then (which was fab, I thought!). Its quite interesting meeting people like Laurel who are amongst the 'big names' in the academic space I inhabit somewhere between arts and social science research. Most of these 'names' are older than me ( I am 54- no spring chicken!) and perhaps would never have got where they are if they had not already had a career as a very different kind of researcher or (interestingly) perhaps if they lived in the UK, where we are so specific about retirement ages. We had some very interesting discussions today between Australian, North American and English academic women about the longer time it takes to reach the top for all women, but particularly those doing interdisciplinary work. Interdisciplinarity it seems is new the global catchphrase, but people working at the intersection between disciplines (and therefore seen as mistress of none??) take longer to get to influential positions. Laurel is now an emeritus professor, but continues to work- to both teach and write - and I notice that she and many of the influential contemporaries in this field are all in their 60s and 70s. Not a short slope to climb up!!

After the workshops and a quick madrigal rehearshal facilitated brilliantly by Artemi at the back of the third floor corridor in the union the conference opened with two keynote addresses....and to continue my theme of spaces in between, there were two keynote speakers, one was from Frederick Erickson, a social sceintist from UCLA looking at the ways using qualitative inquiry methods to advance human rights and the other from Antjie Krog, the South African poet and journalist who wrote the acclaimed bestseller 'The Country of My Skull' a beautifully written account of the South African Truth and Reconciliation committee, which she reported on everyday on her radio programme, from the position:

If its interest is linked only to amnesty and compensation,
then it will have chosen not truth, but justice. If it sees truth

as the widest possible compilation of people's perceptions, stories, myths and experiences, it will have chosen to restore memory and foster a new humanity, and perhaps that is justice in its deepest sense

She is now extraordinary professor of the arts at Western Cape University. I recommend The Country of My Skull, as well as its sequel: A Change of Tongue.






Jane Speedy, Akademika B &B, Urbana, Illinois, May 21st 2009

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