The New Conference Ideal

Last August, when the conference committee first met, the vision laid out for a year-long virtual conference was expansive, ambitious, and it sounded like a lot of fun. Making the most of the situation, Sara Georgini set out an agenda that would allow for a conference at which no two sessions had to compete with one another, where we could engage our participants on multiple platforms, and where attendance would not be constrained by travel budgets. This was going to be a conference that embraced a new reality, and of all the virtual conferences I attended this year I believe ours was the top of the list. While nothing can truly replace the camaraderie of a couple of dozen historians taking over a hotel bar while still energized from an exceptional keynote address, there are elements of this year’s conference I would love to see maintained going forward.

Returning to an in-person conference should include multiplatform presentations, live streamed sessions, and even virtual sessions for presenters who cannot attend in person. I can imagine a session or two, co-sponsored by an institution overseas, streamed into a live audience on site at the conference. There is, for the near future, the possibility of a two-site conference that could help participants limit the expense of traveling across the country (think Live Aid with less Phil Collins and more philosophy). I also like the idea of using some kind of virtual format for asking questions, I know there are times when I think of a question early in a session but forgot what it was by the time the Q&A starts, and this might also help avoid those “questions” that are actually soliloquies. Let us not, in an attempt to recreate what we remember as normal, lose what we have learned.

The nature of our field allows us to be responsive to both past and present, and that was on display in several sessions throughout the conference. Our panelists were able to address current issues of social justice, political division, and centering marginalized voices, while also introducing new scholarship on the 18^th and 19^th centuries. We commemorated the centennial of the 19^th Amendment by remembering those who fought for suffrage but also those whose struggles continued will beyond 1920. This broad reading of Intellectual History is energizing.

While I love learning what my colleagues are researching, studying, and synthesizing, I also enjoyed those praxis sessions that help us understand how to connect our passion to the modern student. The sessions “Beyond the Text,” “Prison Pedagogy,” “Living, Knowing, Sharing,” and the “Reacting to the Past Workshop,” were excellent opportunities to reexamine how we teach. I often worry that as academics we can be our own worst enemy in the classroom and not realize the ways we might be erecting barriers between our subject and our students when we are trying to build bridges.

This year was characterized by patience and endurance, by inclusivity of ideas and individuals, by combining innovation and tradition, and it was a consistent reminder of the variety of strengths we have as a community. I am proud of what we were able to accomplish and I cannot wait to see how we build upon it in the years to come.

Read Bryn’s essay, “Out of the Margins,” and enjoy the entire #USIH2020 Roundtable: African-American Intellectuals and Their Critics here.