A
Klingon’s Guide to Academic Conferences
Brian Cremins
Louisiana State University
Posted: November, 2004 Student Affairs Online, vol. 5 no. 4 - Fall 2004
When they decided to tow the plane back to the
hangar, I knew I wasn’t going to Gainesville.
Although they offered me free passage to another airport in New Orleans,
the attendant could not guarantee that I would arrive at Louis Armstrong
International to catch another flight on time.
I decided to stay home for the weekend.
So I missed another academic conference, which has given me more time to
write this article and pass out peanut butter cups to the few ghouls and
goblins who are trick-or-treating this year.
(I suspect the scarcity of little Frankensteins and ballerinas this year
may have something to do with the impending election. All the kids are tied to their TV sets).
After my flight had been canceled, I found
myself in a sort of limbo. I had
already canceled my two Friday morning classes because I had been unable to
find a substitute willing to teach science fiction novelist Samuel Delany. Once a class has been canceled, there’s no
way to call it back again. Besides, I
don’t have a list of my students’ e-mail addresses, and can you imagine waking
up on a Friday morning and checking your e-mail only to find that your English
professor has sent you a note which reads, “Flight canceled. Our American Lit. Class is a go! See you all this afternoon.”
I had also spent the last several days writing
the paper I would present at the conference.
Now it sat lonely and neglected in my briefcase and my neatly-pressed
clothes were slowly returning to a wrinkled state in my suitcase. I found myself speculating on what the
captain had meant by “technical difficulties.” What if we had taken off? What if those “technical difficulties” had
manifested themselves as we made our way to a connecting flight in
Atlanta? Having read too many Stephen
King novels while in high school, I found my imagination running into dark
corners. Maybe I should have called my
students to an unexpected Friday class after all, if for no other reason to
keep at bay my anxious imagination and its visions of what might have been had
the plane not been shuttled back to its hangar for repairs. With no means of getting to the conference,
no classes to teach, and no midterms to grade (I had finished those a few days
earlier in preparation for the conference), I found myself with an unexpected
day off during which to speculate on the similarities between Star Trek
conventions and academic conferences.
My students often ask me what takes place at
these conferences. I usually begin with
a rather dull explanation of the process of submitting an abstract. The abstract is a short description (usually
250 words) of the essay you plan to read at the conference. Ideally, this paper should be a condensed
version of a larger research project.
If your paper is accepted for one of the conference panels, you have the
opportunity to present your work to a group of interested (and sometimes
not-so-interested) peers who will provide you with feedback and suggestions on
how you might improve or expand upon your research. Conferences also provide academics with the opportunity to renew
acquaintances with long-lost friends or colleagues, or, as my undergraduate
advisor used to say, to get out of the house (and off campus) for a few
days. The most popular conferences, as
you might expect, are those held in balmy climates or romantic, mysterious
cities.
I have compiled the following list for those
attending their first academic conference in literary studies and/or for those
attending their first Star Trek convention, both of which are often
interchangeable realities:
1. Bring a Klingon dictionary. You will find yourself talking with people
who use a language only distantly related to the one you use in your everyday
existence. Klingons will not ask you if
you speak fluent Klingon; rather, they will begin conversing with you as though
you have been speaking the language since it was first heard in the 1979 film, Star Trek: The Motion Picture. Likewise, literary critics will begin
speaking with you in the language with which they are most comfortable:
formalism, structuralism, post-structuralism, Marxism, and various other forms
of critical discourse. There are
several Klingon-dictionary-like guides available for a novice who has stumbled
unexpectedly into the dark wood of literary studies, most notably Terry
Eagleton’s book Literary Theory. Eagleton’s book, however, is not
pocket-sized, so for those moments when you find yourself wracking your brain
to recall where you’ve misplaced your ideological apparatus or your sign/signifier
decoder ring (you might check the glove compartment), I suggest the recent
series of small paperbacks titled Very
Short Introductions published by Oxford University Press. These are short studies in literary theory
which will have you distinguishing your pathetic fallacies from your
mirror-stages in no time.
2. Wear as much Federation gear as possible. As a committed fan of the original Star Trek series who has never accepted
the leadership of Patrick Stewart’s Captain Picard, I recommend you find
yourself a tight-fitting gold or blue shirt, black slacks, and Beatle boots
just like William Shatner and Leonard Nimoy circa 1967. For the ladies, a mini-skirt in the fashion
of Nichelle Nichols or Grace Lee Whitney (better known as Yeoman Janice Rand––the
woman with the pineapple hairstyle) would be quite striking. In academic circles, one cannot go wrong
with the black suit or, for the more adventurous among you, the navy blue suit
and black shoes. Do not wear white to
an academic conference, as you will appear to be lacking in existential despair
which exists in the heart of all great literary thinkers. Men, leave those ties at home. Invest in a selection of black t-shirts to
wear beneath your dark and dashing blazers.
Denim is also an option, and, ladies, always consider the trauma which
awaits you in the valley of those high, spiked heels. You could put somebody’s eye out with those things, and they’re
absolutely murder on the ankles when you’re making your grand entrance down the
staircase of the Marriot convention center.
Trust me, I know. As a final
note to all you ladies and gentleman, leave those tricorders at home. You won’t get them past airport security.
3. Buy at least one, if not a family, of
Tribbles. For those who need a
quick lesson in Star Trek 101, the Tribbles are the furry creatures in David
Gerrold’s popular episode from the original series. They multiply at a rapid rate until they eat grain poisoned by
(you guessed it) the Klingons. During
my first Star Trek convention at the Stony Brook campus of the State University
of New York in 1991, I purchased two stuffed Tribbles, one of which I gave to a
friend and the other which I kept on my bookshelf for years. Perched on the bookshelf, it resembles one
half of a set of ear muffs, or a stuffed toy which has had its eyes, ears,
mouth, and limbs removed. It also emits
a loud squeak when squeezed, a delicate toy for the family pet. Academics will find it difficult to locate
such a charming, exotic item at, for example, the annual Modern Language
Association Conference. Instead, expect
to buy a lot of half-priced scholarly books and monographs. You may also receive a couple of free tote
bags from sympathetic publishers who don’t want to see you throw your back out
as you walk away with your annotated, illustrated edition of Marcel Proust’s
epic A la recherche du temps perdu. Also keep your eyes out for any free
cookies, drinks, or meals (if you can convince your dissertation advisor to
feed you one last time before you venture out into the cold, thankless world of
academia, do it).
4. Set your phasers to stun. If you meet a fellow Star Trek fan who
believes that “Spock’s Brain,” in which Leonard Nimoy’s famous Vulcan is
lobotomized but nevertheless manages to direct Dr. McCoy in how to perform a
successful brain surgery, is the greatest Trek
episode ever, do not quibble. Do not
ostracize this person, do not condemn her.
Rather, extend your hand in friendship and explain why Harlan Ellison’s
“The City on the Edge of Forever” (also known as the “Joan Collins episode”) is
the single greatest Star Trek tale ever told.
Young literary scholars, hold your tongues when you meet an older
colleague who insists on convincing you of the greatness of Ernest Hemingway or
F. Scott Fitzgerald, when all you really want to talk about are comic books,
detective novels, or Bob Dylan’s underrated albums from the late 1980s. We all need to work together, the badness of
“Spock’s Brain” be damned.
5. Beware the Vulcan nerve pinch. Star Trek fans will challenge the depths of
your Trek knowledge. Do not fall into
this competitive trap. After all, the
reason you are attending a Star Trek convention in the first place is that you
hid behind the weight machines in high school gym class when the other kids
were playing dodge-ball. Academic
conventions are filled with people who never played sports, but this does not
mean these folks have lost their desire for competition. After reading your paper, you may find
yourself being asked oblique questions by an aggressive man or woman wearing a
dark suit. While many literary scholars
used books as an escape from the taunts of, for example, their grammar school
or high school classmates, intellectual aggression is often an unfortunate
element of the conference experience.
Even the even-tempered Vulcans get restless now and then. My suggestion? Smile and nod your head and, if the question you have been asked
about your paper is especially obscure, say, “I had not considered that
point. Thank you for bringing it to my
attention.” If this fails to defuse the situation, perform a Jedi mind
trick. While this action might be
frowned upon by Star Trek purists, it may be all that will save you. The Jedi mind trick requires the ability to
see to the heart of the question which is being asked of you. Many academics who appear to be asking a
question are in fact making a statement concerning their own research which has
nothing to do with the paper which you’ve just presented. I believe the cliché most appropriate here
is “axe-grinding.” When you hear the axe a-grinding, you would be wise to utter
another cliché, “Beam me up, Scotty,” which will signify the end of your paper
and your panel. With that finished,
return to the book exhibit for another free tote bag, which will provide you
with plenty of space for all those Tribbles you’ll buy at your next Trek
gathering.
I realize in compiling my list that I may have
neglected other striking similarities between the worlds of Star Trek and academia. Just as there are countless alternate
dimensions, there are galaxies of other parallels which I leave for you, dear
reader, to discover as you explore the strange new worlds of conference hotels
and canceled commuter flights. I would
advise you to live long and prosper, but I’m certain there are copyright
infringement and trademark issues involved in my doing so. Therefore, I will wish you a Happy Halloween
instead, and await letters from the true-believers who love “Spock’s Brain” and
Proust with equal fervor.