Visiting Vancouver
Last week was the annual meeting of the Society for American Archaeology (SAA) in Vancouver, one of my favorite cities anywhere. Temperatures were in the forties and we had both hail and wet snow. Nothing too severe; it was lovely to get away from the crowds and overheated rooms of the convention.
SAA was business as usual. It always is. Crowds of graduate students, professional archaeologists of all ages and occupations, many of them from across Canada and overseas, as well as the usual leavening of government officials. Nothing ever changes--the same exhibits with the usual players, the annual business meeting, a plenary session or two, excursions, and, above all, dozens of paper sessions, usually in crowded rooms and often poorly attended. One worthy institution is a round table lunch, where you can sit with a few others and discuss major issues. I went to a wonderful one, moderated by Professor Paul Mellars of Cambridge University, on the subject of modern humans, which developed into a fascinating discussion over genetics, migration routes, and the origins of bows and arrows. Good stuff! One really goes to these meetings for the networking with others, and that's invaluable.
For some reason, I find the SAA meeting depressing. Perhaps it's because so little changes from one year to the next. Or perhaps it's because one has a sense of slight complacency, of a comfortable world where little changes from one generation to the next and original ideas are in depressingly short supply. Much of SAA, but not all, seems to be archaeology stuck in a deep rut, where much of what happens is so specialized that few people really care about it. Or perhaps it's just me.
But the most depressing part of the meeting was the paper sessions. Such papers have become a kind of ritual for graduate students at all stages of their careers, but no one seems to care how good the general standard should be. I sampled about a dozen presentations over the two days I was at the convention. With one notable exception, they were appalling. The subject matter was usually obscure, often highly provisional, and, above all, presented poorly. Many of the people giving such 15 to 20-minute talks are the professors of the future (and some of them are already teaching). The exception was a young archaeologist,who knew her material thoroughly, used no notes, kept to time, was entertaining, and had bright, relevant visuals. She was a joy to listen to. Everyone else either put their notes on the screen, a gross misuse of PowerPoint or Keynote, or read their paper from a script, or both. Some never looked their audience in the eye! The delivery was either too faint, too monotone, or just plain sleep inducing. Most lost the attention of their audience in the first two minutes. There seemed to be an almost total lack of enthusiasm or passion, of fire in the belly. Is a lack of passion considered professional?
My sample was a tiny one, and perhaps misleading, but I was appalled and wondered why no one gives their students formal training in delivering oral presentations or lectures. It is largely a matter of practice.
The basic rules are simple:
Know your stuff so well that you only need notes for quotes and statistics, if then,
Never put your notes or main paints on the screen except when you need to emphasize a really major point, and even then very sparingly, and at the most once during the talk,
Vary your voice level, show enthusiasm, play on the audience and ENJOY yourself! If you do, your audience will.
And, lastly, keep scrupulously to time.
Many of the people at the conference never went to a single session because they found them boring. Alas, nothing will change as long as peoples' ways to meetings are paid if they deliver papers. But I would have thought that their professional pride would motivate them to do a first rate job, or at least learn how to do one. Nervousness is not an excuse, for adequate preparation and rehearsal readily overcomes this. And as for putting your notes on PowerPoint--that's a lazy person's way of giving a talk and just not acceptable.
I think I'll give the SAA meeting a miss next year.
We have a saying in Sweden about plain speech: "That's words and no pretty songs". (translates poorly).
The sad thing is i agree with you - after having attended not nearly as many conferences as you i would still say that I am fed up with the format, except for networking (works rather poorly), excercise in presenting verbally (okey), and a chance for good excursions (varies).
As you experienced yourself, it's the round table discussions with a select group and a good moderator that suddelny elevates the debate to a whole new unpredicted level. I generally prefer workshops over conferences for this very reason. It's unscripted discussion which is rewarding, not listening to one more person drone on about a black-and-white drawing of a excavation site from whats-its-place, or overwritten slides with quotes from the philosopher-du-jour to show the audience your in the loop.
I and many young colleagues try to persuade our professors to have more training and constructive criticism in presenting materials and interpretations. Since most of them have had neither they tend to ignore these wishes, which is especially troubling for us that have english as a second language (or third) only. I have seen good research undone by poor presentation and poor research elevated through fancy presentation and it irritates me.
More workshops and round table discussions, less paper conferences would be my fervent hope for the future. Articles are best in print anyway.
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