Subject to Change: Nature, Text, and the Limits of the Human

[Strong Flat White]

I'll be attending this upcoming grad conference (March 22-24) at the University of Virginia and wondering whether any other Grad Cafe users are either at Charlottesville as grad students and/or attending the conference? Given the conference's title and focus, I'm just kind of assuming that any responders will automatically be speakin' my language, and we'll be in business! But specifically, I'd be curious to know whether anyone else is interested in doing some quick pre-presentation workshopping slash whether anyone can direct me to the highlights of Charlottesville.  I'll be getting in on Thursday night and staying at a hostel that I think is a mile or two from campus. I need guidance to the best coffee shops around so's I can get my writing on!  I'd also like the skinny on UVa's program, but I realize that's asking for insider informtation.  Which is exactly what I'm doing, yes. Thanks in advance to anyone out there.

[bfat]

I'm sorry I can't help you (probably not the post you wanted to read), but I just have to say, this conference sounds amazing, and I'm kinda jealous--but I'm presenting a paper on posthumanism at NeMLA that weekend so at least my brain will be in the same theoretical space.

 

Where did you apply this season?

[Strong Flat White]

cool, well it's all good.  I'm not applying this season, still finishing up an MA and probably won't be able to apply for a while since my wife is going into a 3 year PA program.  I'm hoping to teach high school in the meantime (with a very strong lead and even a job interview this week). as for the posthumanism...exciting.  We'd probably really enjoy each other's writing. And yeah - when I saw this conference, I was all over it. Looking forward to Timothy Morton's keynote speech.  The regional MLAs rock.  I went to the Rocky Mountain MLA last fall and it has resulted in my first publication, so I send good vibes to the NeMLA.  Speaking of, what's your paper on more specifically?

[bfat]

Speaking of, what's your paper on more specifically?

 

PM'd because if I post it here, I'll be easily google-able, and I need to protect my secret identity.

Edited March 17, 2013 by bfat

[Strong Flat White]

duly noted, thanks.

[christakins]

Hi Strong White Flat,

 

I'm so jealous you're attending the conference! I submitted a proposal, which was accepted but due to unforeseen circumstances (namely the price of airfare during conference weekend) I'm unable to attend. I have no doubt Timothy Morton's presentation will be fantastically wild. You'll have to PM me with the details. 

 

I don't have any info on UVA or Charlottesvile for you, just a sincere, "Go get 'em, champ!" 

[pinkrobot]

I wish! I'm in the same theoretical headspace too, for what it's worth, and would love to hear about Morton's keynote. (It would be kind of cool to get a big PM conversation going about this stuff, no? Would love to get to know more fellow students working in the posthuman/animal studies/ecology studies/etc. wild.)

[Strong Flat White]

ok, thanks to you both, christakins and pinkrobot.  It sounds like, what I'm gathering from these replies, is that there's a good amount of interest in Timothy Morton-style posthumanism, so mayhaps I shall take good notes and owe everyone a good synopsis of how things went upon my return. That said, I'd still like the insider's take on UVa b/c I'm somewhat fascinated by their program, and hey, I'm gonna be there in a couple of days! So, posthumanists unite, and UVa-ers, I'd love to meet you!

[delimitude]

Hey Strong Flat White -- I'll be there! I'm presenting on Sunday on the "Making the Human Body" panel. I'm staying at the Days Inn down the road. The conference schedule looks fantastic!

[Strong Flat White]

Hey Strong Flat White -- I'll be there! I'm presenting on Sunday on the "Making the Human Body" panel. I'm staying at the Days Inn down the road. The conference schedule looks fantastic!

 

SuhWEEEEET!  I'll be going through the schedule tonight to make my hit list.  I'll be sure to keep a look out for your panel topic. I can't remember what mine is called but I'll double-check tonight and come back to post it...  

[delimitude]

Oh, and oops! My panel is called "Making Bodies: The Human Machines."

[Strong Flat White]

so cool...mine is under the panel of "Modeling Texts In and Out of History."  Here I come, Virginia!

[thatjewishgirl]

cool, well it's all good.  I'm not applying this season, still finishing up an MA and probably won't be able to apply for a while since my wife is going into a 3 year PA program.  I'm hoping to teach high school in the meantime (with a very strong lead and even a job interview this week). as for the posthumanism...exciting.  We'd probably really enjoy each other's writing. And yeah - when I saw this conference, I was all over it. Looking forward to Timothy Morton's keynote speech.  The regional MLAs rock.  I went to the Rocky Mountain MLA last fall and it has resulted in my first publication, so I send good vibes to the NeMLA.  Speaking of, what's your paper on more specifically?

 

which panel? I may have heard you.

[Strong Flat White]

which panel? I may have heard you.

 

"Modeling Texts In and Out of History" - did you attend that? I gave the "Artificial Human" paper.

 

Well!  As for the conference as a whole and Timothy Morton and Bruce Holsinger, I have nothing but amazing things to say.  Truly. I have to admit that there is always a bit of wariness surrounding "grad conferences," at least where I come from (we've all been indoctrinated by Semenza's How to be a grad student in the 21st Century, and he writes that grad conferences are good experience to do once, but I think that is based on the assumption that it is less rigorous, less well-organized, and less headily focused than this one). Conferencing, as a matter of professionalization, is "one of those things." However, this one was (to me anyway) way more than one of those things, and I believe it was a true enhancement of my scholarly development and not mere "professionalization" on paper. I was blown away by the cohesion of the panels, the quality of the papers, the engagement of the participants, the friendliness of the UVa-ers, the genuine accessiblity and thoughtfulness and investment by T. Morton...all of it. In these respects, I got so much more out of the whole experience than the Rocky Mountain MLA last fall, and I'm serious when I say that OOO is going on my list of interests and that I'm now reading through that lens without being able to help it.

 

As for Timothy Morton's keynote, I for one was impressed.  And I'm not easily impressed (when, recently, I did a book review of Neil Lazarus' The Postcolonial Unconscious a classmate reviewing the same book - and who thought it was the best thing since sliced bread - asked me how I liked it...meh, possibly a topic for another thread, but point is I am a hard sell). But his talk, entitled "The Dark Side of the Household Object" (a merging of 2 Pink Floyd album titles) was a great introductory to OOO with the emphasis on a perfectly-working machine (and the scariness/disturbingness that comes with that perfection) being a very scary thing for human beings precisely because it suggests that machines might have some agency in "disturbing" the frequencies of things. That is, the "human-driven copy right" (as he called it) on disturbing the vibrations of those "weird loops" (all things - human and object - are weird loops akin to a mobius strip; totally devoid of a dotted line indicating where one thing begins and ends in relation to its plane of existence) is brought into question.  Scary if your hierarchy puts human subjects above objects/things.  Less scary if you can accept it. Some great Q&A afterward, too.  Some very special insights and discussions happening all weekend long (and, as I say, still going as I continue my own readings).

 

Time to get on Amazon and buy up some Morton books.  And...I guess...to add Rice to my list of schools to apply to for PhD!

 

Would love to hear others' thoughts in a sort of conference debrief.  And a shout out to delimitude - your panel was one of my faves.  I want to respect everyone's privacy (even though by announcing my panel and paper I've left myself pretty wide open), so I won't try to guess your panel (and hence your identity) in the open, here, but perhaps we can  use this as the start of private conversations about our ongoing work, whether it be a continuation of OOO or just any overlapping interests.

 

Thanks, all.  Good stuff.

[delimitude]

Thanks, Strong Flat White! I also thoroughly enjoyed the conference! I don't want to ask too many person-specific questions and disrupt the anonymity thingee, but do feel free to PM me.