Learning from Error 4C

17 March 2013

This year marks the first year that I attended and presented at the massively massive 4Cs conference, and I must say that I loved catching up with colleagues that I know from around the US, meeting colleagues that I know from Twitter, and, of course, meet new friends and colleagues in the process. This is the collegial experience afterall!

What I didn’t enjoy as much was my presentation. Let me explain, though. I enjoyed my fellow panelists and their presentations, the questions invoked after the presentations, and the opportunities afforded to meet new scholars during this time and after (I presented on Thurs). But. I feel like I under-performed. My timing was off, and my main message needed clarity and concision. I made some great rookie mistakes. I was humbled. I was taken aback. I was disrupted. Disarmed, if you will. Despite being part embarrassed, part flustered, and part frustrated during and after my performance, I see these errors as a really great thing. This is what I needed. And, I want to emphasize here, I was still well received by my academic peers. What a great thing, right?!

Due to this happening, I spent the remainder of the conference not only processing some really great research and knowledge, but also watching and learning from some scholars’ methods of presenting: Their introductions; their structures; their weaving of hypotaxis and parataxis; their slides and visuals; their errors; how they handled such errors; their timbre; and their use of pauses and silence. Overall, I learned to appreciate the conference as a place for recognition of all of these small moments that happen accross the spectrum of quality of research/theoretical projects. Some great projects are mediated by/through errors, while others are mediated by/through, well, charisma and an eloquent execution of the discourse. Such is communication. Such is writing. (And, FYI, Rachel Sullivan (UW-Mil) gave an excellent presentation on being “against user-friendliness” and what she called “passionate errors”.)

I think through this conference and collegial process, coupled by this introspective moment, I’ve learned that I, at this stage in my career, need to write the paper. I’ve gotten to a new stage in complexity with my research and ideas, where I think I need that aid, if you will. This frustrates me, because I’m also a musician who thrives on improvisation, but I realized something new this time around. I don’t have to kill the improv, even if I read the paper.

I can read a conference paper, but still remain in the moment. I can read the paper, but still listen to myself and my prose as it comes out of my own mouth and is received by my audience. Accordingly, I can read the paper and respond to thoughts as they happen in the present and presence of the moment. I don’t have to kill that part of me that I love. I love errors, goofs, gaffs, and instances of new ideas as they emerge in the now of a performance, and I learned this year that presenting is like performing with a band.

My fellow panelists are my band members. My paper and materials are my instruments and effects – my stompboxes, if you will. (Thinking about B. Hawk’s “Stompbox Logic” here). I can play my prepared paper like I play my guitar, but use my available means of persuasion and expression with the (im)material and human constraints of the situation. What a cool gig, right?!

So, while I didn’t have the greatest performance during my presentation this time around, I learned far more from the errors and subsequent conversations and moments to listen and learn than from the smoothest interactions experienced at the 4Cs.