What events did I attend at AWP? I keep asking myself this question. Officially, I was at the bookfair for Schooner and went to a total of five panels. Quasi-officially, I helped court donors. This was nice because I got expensive food and drinks purchased for me, but I didn't get to track down people I'd hoped to find. Fair enough.
And now to panels. I saw one reading, and most everyone there was delightful. I attended both panels that had anything to do with science and ecocriticism. Both. Two. Pretty depressing, though the content of each was intriguing and stimulating. Well researched, well organized papers. But AWP has a reputation for people sort of taking a mulligan on intellectual work. I saw one panel where three of the four presenters were prepared and the last one just bumbled their way through a paper that didn't seem that organized to begin with. The worst presentation was one for "Poets on Poetic." I sat through two papers and left partway through the third. Elsewhere in the electronic wilderness, someone characterized that panel as "contentious." Maybe accusations started to fly after I left. Mostly, I remember the papers as being a chant: Adorno, Saussure, Vendler, Deleuze, etc. At the science panel, Bin Ramke invoked a thinker or two and then moved the thinking along. I didn't agree with every conclusion he drew, but it was his own by god thought in reaction to the ideas. The poetics panel employed what I think of as the "junior philosophy major" strategy. You build an unassailable construction by a cleverly built hedge of appeals to authority (which might be an awkward way of putting it, but I trust you to see what I mean). In the end, though, you're left with an argument about angels on heads of pins. The people were entertaining, but the papers (the first two) were unconvincing. The science people restored my faith in the ability of poets to argue coherently. And I should point out that most of the latter panel were far more established figures who had far less at stake, to give this discussion a human reference.
The ecocritical pedagogy panel was right at the top of my list of favorites. It's the only one at which I took notes. What's at stake in taking writing students outdoors? Crazy stuff. Like removing any kind of front of the classroom. Finding out the real-life skills and knowledge of the students. . . and it might be more useful than yours. Forcing them to confront the world they're being asked to right about. Plus, you got to hear Katie Fallon talk about how her students reacted when a red tailed hawk tore a mouse in half in front of her class. But the poor bastards had to give their talk at nine in the morning on Saturday. One of the guys setting up was still drunk from the night before. And that was good fun.
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