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[polly_mer]

I know this has come up before but I remain confused about why people would go to a conference for any purpose other than to give papers, listen to other people give papers, and then spend breakfast, lunch, and dinner with colleagues discussing the presented papers, recently published papers, and what we could do to collaborate on projects related to the papers we have been discussing.

Maybe I and everyone I know professionally just doesn't do conferences right...to the point of having well attended weekend and Friday sessions in tourist spots.

I can only conclude that historians are just weird.

Polly, I can't explain the disciplinary differences either, except to agree that size has something to do with it. Imagine if there were one large "Science" conference for nuclear physicists, mechanical engineers, agronomists, and medical doctors. OK, that is an exaggeration, but you get the idea.

LarryC, while I get your point, clearly you have not been to an APS meeting where we do indeed have nuclear physicists, mechanical engineers, medical people, particle physicists, chemists, computer scientists, petroleum engineers, science education people, mathematicians, and biologists present work in their fields, although, to be fair, not generally in the same session.

Another item might be that history conferences in general suck because most of us read our papers. Yes, we stand up and take out a sheath of paper and read from it. I don't know why we do this but we do. In 90 cases out of 100 it is boring beyond belief. So if it is a sunny day outside it is easy to decide to ditch the conference.

Ah, see the great advantage of the APS March Meeting is that contributed talks are 10 minutes plus 2 minutes for questions.  No one even bothers to have note cards.  You slap a couple figures up on the projector, hope that your accent and word choice are intelligible (with more than half of the presenters non-native English speakers, things can get quite entertaining), and try to remember not to blind the audience with the laser pointer as you gesticulate wildly.  People often start or end with a joking reference to popular culture (Monty Python is very popular) and even if this particular speaker is boring, hey, another will be along in just a few minutes or any of the 49 other sessions might have something better.

That's how I have seen talks on the wave properties of plants, the antifreeze properties of fish, the straight dope on global warming from a representative of UN panel, and how to teach physics to high schoolers through strategic abuse of your microwave at a conference where I chaired a session on the experimental properties of diblock copolymers and presented a talk on the chemical reactions occurring right after an explosive was detonated.

So I'm still not buying the "big tent doesn't work" argument, but I can certainly understand why no one wants to listen to people who are merely going to read from a large sheaf of papers.

[concordancia]

Actually, I think the APS and AHA operate on similar principles. The people on the AHA programming committee are in fact historians, at least.

The difference, I suspect, is scale. The AHA is ridiculously massive. It routinely fills four major conference hotels, plus a large chunk of people saving money by staying in cheaper hotels 20 miles away. The number of panels per time slot runs well into the double digits. And of course the program committee has to sift through many more proposals than actually fit on the program. In "the pit," there are dozens of job applicants huddled together in the waiting area for each half-hour interview slot, and at any given moment there are liable to be just as many hovering in the hallways of the various hotels waiting for their turn to interview with a department that ponied up the money for a suite.

FYI, the APS March Meeting runs about fifty parallel sessions in every time slot with roughly 7,000 papers given over the course of the week with each person limited to at most one contributed paper or poster with a very small number of people also allowed to present an invited talk.  While I don't know if the AHA is larger, the APS March Meeting is not by any means a small operation and it draws an international crowd.  One of the reasons that it is so large is that any one who turns in an abstract by the deadline gets a scheduled slot.  For that reason, in just the past ten years, the number of parallel sessions has ballooned from thirty to fifty.  

The American Chemical Society national meetings and Materials Society meetings are both larger than APS.  All three of those societies tend to have conferences filled with talks that are primarily very focused on one small part of a sub-sub-subfield.  So I'm not buying the argument that the historians couldn't do something similar under a big umbrella organization that is merely in charge of logistics of reserving a convention center and collating the programs arranged by subfield organizations.

I think the problem may, in fact, be (disclaimer: I am not in an AHA, APS, or ACS field) that the AHA is at least somewhat selective in what it accepts, compared to at least the ACS.

The MLA, for example, apportions out a number of slots on the program well in advance to various groups based on what can only generously be described as arcane standards. Then there are various organized sessions, but there are only a limited number of those. As a result, fields like mine, which might have a natural home there but are somewhat marginalized within the organization, get nearly frozen out. (Doesn't matter to me, though, I like the atmosphere at the LSA better.)

My question is "Why does it have to be that way?"  Being selective for limited publication space makes sense to me.  That's also true in science.  However, surely if an organization can draw thousands of people that will partition into reasonable size groups for panels on esoteric topics, what is the point of putting such strict limits on numbers of sessions?  Surely, the same people who want to present a topic will volunteer to chair the extra panels; the organization has already reserved the convention center and surrounding hotels so that rooms should not be a problem if you start earlier in the day or week and go later.  

I'm still not buying the argument that it couldn't be done because history is soooooo different from other large fields encompassing dozens of sub-sub-subfields that somehow manage to have big conferences with most of the attendees presenting bits of their tiny research interests.

Two problems:

1. Having so many sessions would require attendees to actually attend panels.

2. The interview process would be severely interrupted.

3. Space is not unlimited.

4. "bits" calls to mind poster sessions. In my own field, I have no idea how anyone would go about making a poster. I imagine most historians feel this way, as well.

[polly_mer]

3. Space is not unlimited.

No, it's not.  But c'mon, if we can find venues big enough for 50 parallel sessions, interview sessions, speaker ready rooms, and satellite meetings that are not officially sanctioned by APS, then I'm thinking that historians do better on that front as well.

4. "bits" calls to mind poster sessions. In my own field, I have no idea how anyone would go about making a poster. I imagine most historians feel this way, as well.

"Bits" means "A conscious selection of one small piece of one of the several large projects upon which my research group is working".  You can't tell me that you absolutely must read your whole book or not present at all.  If you cannot give a 15 to 20 minute talk to an audience of experts in your field on one interesting aspect of your recent research, then all I can say is that your field is also weird.

[whiteknight]

I can only conclude that historians are just weird.

*ding, ding, ding* We have a winner! :P

[historywoman]

I can only conclude that historians are just weird.

*ding, ding, ding* We have a winner! :P

Ya think?

HW

[parispundit]

I have been involved in discussions like these, as grad student, job supplicant, SC member, etc for about 20 years. In all that time I have seen one actual reform - recognizing the intellectual wasteland the AHA had become, in which despite the selectivity most panels were quite poor, the AHA decided to throw in a few panels composed of senior stars. More sensible would have been to require every panel to have at least one paper (as opposed to comment) be given by someone with tenure. With apologies to younger forumites, in history the somewhat older and more experienced folk tend to give better papers than ABDs and new Ph.Ds. At present, intellectually the best thing about the AHA is usually the publishers' exhibits.

In fact the AHA conference exists purely as meat market. It stinks. For years I tried to argue in my dept that we do phone interviews. Yeah, some people do better in person. But those people will need to interact with students and colleagues on the phone, too. Occasionally I succeeded,and I don't think the search suffered. What persuaded people on these occasions was getting the admin to agree that we could bring 3 rather than 2 people to campus if we didn't ask for any conference travel expenses for the SC.

If we are really going to reform the search process, I have a more radical suggestion. Don't do either phone or conference interviews. Narrow down your list to 10-12 as usual. Then have the SC read the writing samples in a more than cursory way. Of course, they should anyway, but when faced with 75 apps, or even 35, most people don't. After a serious read, pick 3, invite to campus. Yes, you will get the occasional great writer/scholar who can't talk. But letters ought to avoid this, and in my view it is worth wasting an occasional interview this way to get more serious consideration of the writing.

This process might not be ideal if you are a 4/4 institution that cares only about teaching. In which case, do the same with a taped lecture, or lesson plans, or something else.

But intellectually speaking, I think the AHA is hopeless.

[erzuliefreda]

With apologies to younger forumites, in history the somewhat older and more experienced folk tend to give better papers than ABDs and new Ph.Ds.

Perhaps, but all of the "I wrote this on the plane and based it on no research" talks I have seen in history have been the work of senior faculty. Worse, their buddies attend and validate the work of the senior scholar, in many cases, ignoring the junior people on the panel. Thus the, "You know, Ralph, when you stood up there and scratched your backside and ruminated on the salad bar, it reminded me of that panel we attended in Glasgow when Edward Said argued with Bill over the meaning of colonialism. Could you expand on that for us?"

In any case, I don't see any reform on the horizon for the AHA. My 4/4 department senior colleagues insist that only by meeting the candidates in person can they conduct a proper interview. They also insist they know within five minutes whether or not someone is a viable candidate. "And it's a trip to San Diego!" Thus it has always been done, thus shall it continue, etc.

[onion]

With apologies to younger forumites, in history the somewhat older and more experienced folk tend to give better papers than ABDs and new Ph.Ds.

Perhaps, but all of the "I wrote this on the plane and based it on no research" talks I have seen in history have been the work of senior faculty. Worse, their buddies attend and validate the work of the senior scholar, in many cases, ignoring the junior people on the panel. Thus the, "You know, Ralph, when you stood up there and scratched your backside and ruminated on the salad bar, it reminded me of that panel we attended in Glasgow when Edward Said argued with Bill over the meaning of colonialism. Could you expand on that for us?"

I agree.  What kind of elitist crap is it that younger scholars don't give papers that are as good as the more experienced people? I have two reactions to that statement: 

A) Duh.  The younger scholars don't have as much experience, so their delivery may not be as confident and polished, but I find that they are the ones who are actually doing interesting and innovative research.  But I think that the exchanges that can go on during the comment of the ABDs' papers is really interesting, and can bring together "experienced" opinions and the new person's new work/approach.

B) This sort of attitude is what keeps the AHA the intellectual wasteland that it is.  I've sat through papers like Erzuliefrieda describes, and the AHA *always* has those stupid festschrift panels to celebrate That One Book About American Political History: 20 Years Hence.  The author sits there and looks either full of themself or uncomfortable, and a bunch of suck up grad students show up and make comments about how Prof. Fullofhimself has transformed the field for them.  Gross.

That's another reason why I think the AHA is an intellectual wasteland.

[parispundit]

Onion said "What kind of elitist crap is it that younger scholars don't give papers that are as good as the more experienced people?"

If Onion is correct, experience in the historical profession is worthless, except perhaps for polishing delivery.
I recall reading that this is true in math, but I think it is not the case in history.

Sure, senior scholars do on occasion blow AHA papers off in a way that junior people don't, but on balance, I think historians get better at their work over time. Onion, don't you hope this is true?

[onion]

Onion said "What kind of elitist crap is it that younger scholars don't give papers that are as good as the more experienced people?"

If Onion is correct, experience in the historical profession is worthless, except perhaps for polishing delivery.
I recall reading that this is true in math, but I think it is not the case in history.

Sure, senior scholars do on occasion blow AHA papers off in a way that junior people don't, but on balance, I think historians get better at their work over time. Onion, don't you hope this is true?

I did not mean to suggest that experience was worthless; I was suggesting that it is elitist to think that the only intellectual value comes from listening to tenured people.  Yes, of course, people improve with experience in their professions, but unlike something like surgery, in history there is room for experimentation and "play", and to that end, younger people should be given a welcoming venue to try out their ideas and bounce them off "older" people who aren't mentors or professors from their program in order to get out of that intellectual inbreeding and repetition that I think the historical profession is overrun with.

I think that younger, untenured people bring something fresh in their research and interpretations, and that some "established" historians are merely reinventing their own work over and over again, get stuck in their ways, or are hostile to certain theoretical approaches with which they are not comfortable.  For example, if I never have to hear another paean to Alan Brinkley or Jonathan Spence or James McPherson again, I'd be okay with that.  "Older" historians might benefit from interacting, in a serious way, with "younger" historians.  The process of history should be more collaborative, and should not be set up in such a way that "young" and untenured folks have to sit at the feet of their masters forever, until they are "old" or seasoned enough to be considered worth listening to.

When I go to the AHA, I stick to my affiliated societies' panels; it shrinks the conference for me and automatically weeds out a large portion of the crap.  My affiliated societies don't have their own conferences (like SHAFR or SHEAR do), so this is the only time I get to interact with "my people."

[larryc]

Eighty percent of the paper sessions I ever attended were boring or worthless. So you're both right. 

[t_r_b]

Eighty percent of the paper sessions I ever attended were boring or worthless. So you're both right. 

Chime on that.

Also, I strongly suspect that one reason for the suckiness of the papers is that tenured faculty don't bother to train their graduate students in how to present. Only a small minority of my graduate seminars required us to present anything more challenging than discussion questions.

We also have a generation gap problem that overlaps with and reinforces the balkanization of subfields problem. In many fields, the younger generation challenges the interpretations of their elders. But in history the problem is compounded because different generations often have different ideas about what constitutes worthwhile and interesting scholarship. It's not just a matter of, "we're doing this better than you did," it's "we're doing a qualitatively different and more useful kind of scholarship than you did." So a set of papers by senior scholars might be fascinating to parispundit, but a lot of tired old recycled ideas to onion. And that's not just a matter of personal taste: it's about fundamentally different ideas about what good historical scholarship looks like.

But having said that, yeah, the suckiness of conference papers appears to transcend both generations and subfields.

[rroscoe]

I had five interviews at the AHA when I was last on the job market in 2006-2007. I generally disliked the experience and did not receive a campus interview from any of my AHA interviews. I'll never forget the school that rushed through my interview and had timed the interviews so closely together than the next candidate knocked on the door just as my interview was ending. It really was a meat market.

On the other hand, I had several phone interviews between February and early April from schools (SLACS and CCs) that skipped the AHA altogether. I ended up with two campus visits from those interviews, one of which landed me the t-t position I have now. I have served on two search committees since then and we've never bothered with the AHA. The procedure seems to be 6-8 phone interviews followed by 3 campus visits.

The only thing I gained from attending the AHA was first hand knowledge of one of the more distasteful aspects of my profession. I don't think I improved my interview skills and it certainly didn't result in a job.
But I wonder how typical my job search was. How many of you out there landed a t-t from a school that didn't interview at the AHA? Is there any information on what percentage of schools with openings don't attend the AHA for interviews? With the possible exception of prestigious R1s, I don't see what schools gain from the AHA. It is cheaper and probably more humane to simply do phone interviews in lieu of the AHA interview. In fact, with the economy the way it is now, I won't be surprised if more schools don't figure that out this year.

rroscoe 

[katherineparr]

Very interesting discussion. I just hopped by tonight out of sheer boredom and what do I find? Something I'm actually interested in. Shocking.

Anyway, for Polly's reference: AHA regularly welcomes between 3500 and 5000 attendees. The west-coast meetings are usually substantially smaller, while cities like DC and Boston seem to attract the most people. We'll see how San Diego goes, but the Seattle OAH was not well-attended.

For a large conference, 5000 is not at all big. There are (don't ask me how I know this) more than 10,000 in NYC every year for the annual lingerie industry show. So it's not that the AHA is Just So Big. But I agree with a previous poster that the problem is the AHA's need/attempt to cover everything (usually under some truly idiot theme). And then the affiliated societies make things even more interesting. I'm like Onion: usually there's exactly *nothing* in my field. But the Society for Church History has 27 panels!

I guess this means that Polly is right - we could form sub-groups and solve our content problem. But there doesn't seem to be much impulse to do that.

Onward. The quote below:

"I disagree with whiteknight's suggestion that changing the bureaucracy (or Obama-style leadership) would fix things. If the AHA lost its role as the meat market of the historical profession, the AHA would cease to exist, at least in its current form. The annual conference would become a much smaller affair, and large chunks of the organization's revenue streams would disappear. If the conference interview disappeared, a very large proportion of the AHA membership would stop renewing. So it doesn't matter who is running the AHA. As long as the people running the AHA are dedicated to the organization's continued existence, they will do all they can to preserve the conference interview."

Is entirely correct. The AHA needs the Annual Meeting for revenue reasons. It absolutely needs it. So they try everything they can think of to ensure that people who attend register, and that as many folks as possible attend. Period. Any concern for job-seekers at the AHA will never make any progress unless it takes this point into consideration.

Oh, and Hi Onion and SecretWeapon! Fun to drink $12 beer with you two years ago!

[the_honey_badger]

Katherineparr! How nice to "read" you!
OAH in Seattle was like being on a sinking ship or visiting a ghost town.  The venue was too big for even a good year and I ended up filling in as an "emergency" chair on two panels plus chairing/commenting on the panel I gave a paper on because the other two were grad students!  I went to one where only one panelist showed up and no one else and he said:  "Welcome to the 'Bob Smith' show---I'll be presenting, introducing and critiquing myself. It should be interesting!"  (It was hilarious)