The Berliner Antike-Kolleg has recently put out a call for volunteers, both for participants and for organisers, for an Altertumswissenschaft-Slam! (or, as they more prosaically put it, an altertumswissenschaftlichen Science Slam. Why is there always this science envy..?). Sounds great fun – though probably something more for Young People, or at least more extrovertedly enthusiastic people, or at any rate people who remember to include the occasional joke in their presentations – and it did lead me to wonder about other possible competitive academic events, not least because today I was doing the ‘impromptu 10-minute response to three conference papers not previously seen’ thing at the European Social Science History Conference in Valencia. Freshly-squeezed Valencia oranges, superb seafood, the wackiest craft beer you will find (Beer with rosemary and rosemary honey! Beer with sea water!), and a lot of ancient Roman network theory; wish you were here… (more…)
Posts Tagged ‘academic conferences’
Ludi academicorum
Posted in Musings, tagged academia, academic conferences on March 30, 2016| Leave a Comment »
Academic Groupthink and the Power of Randomness
Posted in Events, Musings, tagged academic conferences on December 9, 2012| 6 Comments »
What’s the best way to organise an academic research event? Actually that’s a stupid question; it all depends on what sort of an event you want, or what it’s intended to achieve. So, to narrow the focus to the sort of event I enjoy: what’s the best way to organise a research workshop on a particular theme, however broad or narrow, with the aim of having a productive and enjoyable discussion of its different aspects and with at least the possibility of generating new ideas and possibilities (new to me, at least, if not necessarily new in themselves)? I’ve spent the last few days co-ordinating the annual meeting of the Legacy of Greek Political Thought network in Bristol (and so am now thoroughly exhausted, hence liable to be a bit terse and bad-tempered), and my basic principle was to get a bunch of clever people interested in more-or-less connected if not similar things, put them in a room together and make sure that coffee and food are available at regular intervals. (more…)
Sphinx 