My Year of Virtual Conferences Or, Watching Webinars in My Slippers

I love a good conference. I love the energy that you feel when you walk into the lobby and know that you have a few good and intense days ahead of you. I love listening to people talk about their work, and asking questions about new ways to think about things. I love presenting my own work to an audience beyond my classroom, getting into the details with the other scholars who are just as excited about them as I am. I love the community that develops as you sit in the uncomfortable chairs of hotel conference rooms, continuing the conversation after the panel is over. I love the reunions over drinks at the reception, or getting to know someone over a cup of coffee grabbed between panels.

Which is all a long way of saying: I came into 2020 very worried about what virtual conferences would look like. So much of what I love about conferences did not seem easily reproduced in a virtual format. But when Sara Georgini shared her plans for a yearlong virtual USIH with the Program Committee, it suddenly struck me that there might be real possibilities for something entirely new to love about virtual conferences.

By separating the conference from the boundaries of a weekend in a single city, new opportunities opened up. The increased accessibility of conference programming has been a major benefit. For those who could not attend a weekend conference in Boston because of cost, timing, travel challenges, or childcare demands, suddenly attending the conference became possible. It became possible, too, to drop in for individual panels that seemed exciting without committing to attending an entire conference. And I got to attend panels in my slippers, with my cat sitting by my side.

Over the course of the year, I came to appreciate some major benefits of the online conference:

In a year of isolation, these webinars have provided a wonderful opportunity for connection and intellectual community.

In a year when it has been extremely challenging for so many of us to conduct our research, and for many months when much of my intellectual energy seemed to be going to helping a fifth grader navigate online schooling, the webinars provided a venue for thinking about scholarship and reminding me why I do it.

In a year where it has been very tempting to turn on Netflix at the end of a long day and zone out, the webinars have helped to reawaken my curiosity and engagement with the field.

And, finally, in a year when I spent much of my time working out of a corner of my bedroom and any earlier boundaries between work and home seemed to have completely evaporated, it felt nice to show my family what the work of history can be. When it isn’t impossible, working on my book with my kid hanging out in my office has been a gift. Similarly, I came to really appreciate the opportunity to have my daughter wander in while I was watching a panel. Sometimes she’s stuck around, asking me about things that she didn’t understand. I like to think that she understands my work and why I love it in a new way than she used to when attending a conference meant getting on a plane and spending a few days away from home.

This is not to say that it’s always been easy. I still miss the particular energy and intensity of an in-person conference. For everything that is wonderful and convenient about online webinars, it can be a real challenge to fit in the kind of meaningful engagement with presentations from my home office. The distractions of home life pull me away from the kind of focused attention that I want to give to the panel in front of me.

I cannot wait until we can gather again to catch up about our work. But when we’re back in those uncomfortable chairs, I sure will miss conferencing in my slippers.