camws 2022 wrap-up
alright this was probably my last conference as primarily a grad student (with luck it might be the last one where i don’t have my phd yet but i’m not gonna bank on that yet) and i did not expect it to be so interesting
1. gave a paper on Lucan and GoT s08 e03, “The Long Night” which went really well even though (or because??) i didn’t read an essay aloud but planned it like a presentation with notes, not script. met Monica Cyrino who presided over the panel, did a great job with that, was super nice, and gave me and my colleague specific advice for future presentations.
2. noticed a lot of the problems of the field in action: saw a white man quote a Jamaican source with his “bad Jamaican accent” kind of for levity in his paper, heard an award acceptance speech that claimed classics is under fire from cancel culture (also a lot of other really... troubling ideas in there that went lauded instead of challenged), missed a meeting in which reports indicate that white woman tears were shed in response to a proposal that CAMWS adopt an explicit non-discrimination policy for choosing the sites of future meetings.
3. realized how extensive my network is, actually -- saw 3 of my undergrad classics profs at the meeting, met up with 1 religion prof in town, tracked down 1 summer school friend, saw in passing one of the Temple profs who taught me everything I know about Homer, met 2 people in person who I know well from pandemic-era zoom events. And in addition to that I made some new friends, some just by mutual connections, some just by the chance of standing near each other in a reception or panel or whatever.
4. did hear a presider excitedly claim that it’s nice to have “emerged victorious from the pandemic” which....... i hold out hope that we didn’t all attend a superspreader event but we probably won’t know that for a few more days.
5. also got to hang out in winston-salem where i went to college and my roommate indulged my nostalgia the whole time, and for that i am endlessly grateful. i love that city so much, like, it’s not without its problems, but it’s actually a nice place to be.