Conference Inference

Reflections on conferences past (David Clark)

In this post David Clark looks back on conferences past, reflecting on the role they have played in his career.

Editors’ note: Recently on Twitter the Conference Inference editors came across the following tweet, where David Clark shared the discovery of the manuscript of his first conference presentation. In this post we have asked David to use the discovery as a beginning point to reflect on conferences past. David’s post may be read alongside other Conference Inference posts which foreground memories of conferences by Sandra Acker and Barbara Grant

Are doctoral students missing conferences? An interview with Brittany Botti-Amell

What impact has COVID-19’s interruption of conferences had on doctoral students? Conference Inference editor James Burford asked Carleton University doctoral candidate Brittany Botti-Amell to share her reflections.

‘Confer-ring’ at contemplative studies conferences: Conference ethnography in a time of COVID-19 (Mareike Smolka)

In this post Mareike Smolka reflects back over a series of online conferences during 2020, arguing that digital environments offer opportunities for deepening connections.

Figure 1: Keynote speaker Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche at Mind & Life European Summer Research Institute (ESRI) 2020, ©Michael Fuchs.

Re-imagining Audre Lorde’s ‘Sister Outsider’ in an era of online conferences (Emily F. Henderson)

‘Sister Outsider’, Audre Lorde’s famous collection of essays, is imbued with conferences. How might this work have differed if it had taken place in the COVID era of online conferences…?

Post-Volcano Musings: Re-visiting the disruptive eruption of volcano Eyjafjallajökull in the light of COVID-19 (Ole B. Jensen)

In this post, Ole B. Jensen ponders on the capacity of disruptive events such as pandemics and natural disasters to re-think our understanding of social orders – including conferences.

A distraction from the distractions: Active learning at academic conferences (Gail Morton)

In this post Gail Morton wonders if a successful academic conference experience begins (in part at least) with the attendee’s state of mind.

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Why do doctoral students attend conferences? (Omolabake Fakunle)

In this post the reasons why doctoral students attend conferences are contrasted with normative assumptions within institutions, thus illustrating a gap in harmonising three key factors in doctoral education: student motivations, professional expectations and institutional support.

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