tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post7274242835615338497..comments2023-11-02T02:14:31.901-06:00Comments on ReadMoreWriteMoreThinkMoreBeMore: The Etiquette of Q & ADoctor Jhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13189506916480012553noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-50801512580829442882010-03-18T09:58:12.150-06:002010-03-18T09:58:12.150-06:00I agree with Emma B.; this was a very interesting ...I agree with Emma B.; this was a very interesting presentation that hits some of the highlights of conference participation. However, I want to draw your attention to two essential contributions to the literature that you appear to have neglected:<br /><br />1. Most importantly, my paper <a href="http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1332144" rel="nofollow">"How to be a Great Conference Participant"</a> is essential.<br /><br />2. The always-interesting Tyler Cowen has <a href="http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2010/03/why-do-people-ask-questions-at-public-events.html" rel="nofollow">also blogged about this recently</a>.<br /><br />I'll end my question with an amusing anecdote that adds little to the discussion but that will consume some of the time that stands between right now and the end of the session. When we were in graduate school, David Zetland--who spoke at Rhodes this past Fall and whose blog <a href="http://wwwaguanomics.com" rel="nofollow">Aguanomics</a> is essential reading for anyone interested in environmental issues--attended the Institute for Humane Studies's Social Change Workshop. At the end of one session, someone gave one of those soliloquy-questions (soliliquestions?) that didn't really have a point. David and I, from different places in the audience, independently timed him at 3:56. At least, I think it was 3:56. Regardless, we came away with the same time measure.Art Cardenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00913600136563861287noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-33488833.post-27203819581810086152010-03-18T09:03:17.280-06:002010-03-18T09:03:17.280-06:00I have a question.
Dr. J, thank you for your exce...I have a question.<br /><br />Dr. J, thank you for your excellent presentation. You indeed pinpoint some of the more frustrating elements of Q&A sessions and organize common complaints into a useful rubric.<br /><br />However. (Oh shit, she's going off... is the moderator going to stop her?) As someone regularly guilty of many, if not all of the things you would like to see the end of (in all roles) I fear, however, that the model of question and answer for which you wish might not be one that is either suitable, desirable, or even possible. Q&A in some contexts might mean a direct answer can be given to a simple and directly relevant question about the paper. But in our field, how many direct answers so simple relevant questions can there be? Factual information? Ok. The result of a logical operation? Oh yes.<br /><br />Rather, it seems to me, that Q&A is to be sure an opportunity for simple clarifications, but moreover, and better, it is also an opportunity for dialogue, for recontextualization, for speculation, for opening up the possibilities raised by the presentation which might take it in new directions. I do not see it as an opportunity for definitive answers - the "Q&A" in this sense is a misnomer.<br /><br />I am moved to ask you a question because something you have said has set me off on a train of thought, has inspired or irritated me. I would like to air that and see how you might respond to it. What I say might not take the form of a question, except at the end I'll say, "how would you respond to that?" This to me is the doing of philosophy. <br /><br />Sure thing, shut down the arrogant, the rude, the blowhards, the hostile, and so on. But seeking to limit the Q&A to simple and literal "Q&A" is seeking to limit the expression of what Foucault would call an *incitement* to discourse. This latter comes close to the very reason I attend philosophical conferences in the first place. (And this is all without even mentioning the Derridean point that the condition of the possibility of the letter is the possibility of its non-arrival... etc.)<br /><br />Care to respond? :)Emma B.noreply@blogger.com