After the Conference

Featured photo: "Beware of Cats" by Ariana Blaga.

Hey all --

The Northeastern Political Science Association Annual Meeting was what I call "good busy." You do lots, it's all productive, everyone gains, there's so much to celebrate. Time slows down. Not just you, but everyone else is trying to take in each moment.

So maybe better than "good busy" – sublime busy. Truth be told, though, it was a nightmare getting there. A flight delay resulted in missed connecting flights. I had to take an initial leg of the journey to get to a city with more airports, book a flight with another airline from the plane I was on, rush to the other airport, and then finally arrive in Philadelphia. If I hadn't that, I would not have presented or served as discussant.

I don't want to tell you how much I spent. I'll say this: gathering with other scholars, seeing certain people, and visiting my family are invaluable. But it cost me, and some dollar amounts would have been prohibitive. I came away from the conference with one major idea on my mind: we need things to change in order to live.

To be sure, what we talked about there has stayed with me. I'm still thinking about a paper on witchcraft and restorative justice prior to colonialism. How imperial and carceral practices consistently look to do violence as opposed to the work of healing. Another on what educational practice post-conflict should look like. How the demonization of former enemies can and will appear in textbooks. A lovely introduction to Aldo Leopold, a conservationist who held the land was an inherent source of wonder.

Political science is a full consideration of the human condition. How can an immersion in it inform my day to day efforts teaching and advising? I got back into the classroom this week. I know I got some students to articulate their rights and think about how they operate or don't operate in practice. (We talked this week about the 8th amendment and deadly prison heat.) I helped plan a drive for our campus' food pantry. We've gotten 25 items so far and are hoping for many more. It is good work, and I'm worried all the same.

I'm worried because I need to know our students aren't just learning the material for a grade. I want them to understand needs, address them, and know the good they do. And I know that understanding needs requires the discipline to read about policy, observe the conduct of politics, engage different theories, see and hear from the people around them. This doesn't mean everyone has to major in the social sciences or something which could work the same way. But I don't know what we're doing when no one believes this respectable, that panic about getting a job is the only acceptable thing to voice.

I don't have answers right now. I just know I have to advocate. We need more scholars and budding scholars at the conference; we need more people in all the diverse fields which increase our awareness. It is not a coincidence that the English Honor Society I advise, in addition to running an item drive for the pantry, did all the things they discuss in their newsletter below:

Thank you for listening. Do feel free to leave compliments for the students of Sigma Kappa Delta, Psi Alpha chapter in the comments. I will convey your regards.