giving talks
There is this particular social activity that we (academics) do that I don’t know if anyone else does, and it’s the invited talk. The colloquium. I came of age right before pandemic and lockdown so I had a couple of these as a grad student and freshly minted PhD, and then they all moved on zoom for several of my formative “early career researcher” years, but I’ve started doing them in person now and it’s very fascinating.
What happens is, someone emails me and asks me if I would like to come tell them stuff. Sometimes there’s a bit of money involved but it’s never anywhere near what would be a reasonable “wage” which is why it’s called an “honorarium.” It’s a small amount compared to like, lawyer money, but a lot of money when you’re a food-and-housing-insecure grad student. And what they’re paying for is, I think, ideas? I think that’s it. Or ideas and interaction. Cross-pollination.
And then what happens is, I go. Lately I’ve been doing the ones that are within train distance, which is great because I fucking hate flying, but I have also done one in recent memory that did involve a cross-country flight. And when I am going, I have this sense of “whose money is this paying for my train / plane ticket? Why is it worth it to them to fly me out there? What exactly is this all about?”
And then part of the ritual is that I have meetings with grad students and faculty in the department. Who I meet with varies from place to place — in one place, they gave me a list of people who wanted to meet with me, but then another place, they asked me for a list of people whom I’d like to meet with. I don’t know how the etiquette and politeness math works out on all this. Do I offend by not asking to meet with certain ones? I have to just comb their faculty pages and try to detect — have I read something of theirs? Are they likely to have read something of mine? Have we met at a conference? Are we related on the family tree? Various of these types of questions. And the meetings are so odd, because they’re one-offs — we’re not meeting as the start of a collab, or anything (though sometimes later it becomes that). It feels a lot like doing some sort of regency ball circuit, like I must be Introduced Around. It felt especially like that when I was doing this pre-permanent-job. Like debutante’ing.
And the third (and possibly honestly most important) part of the ritual (other than actually giving the talk) is the eating. It always seems to be lunch with grad students, then dinner with an assortment (often 1 or 2 faculty and a small handful of grad students again, but sometimes all faculty; it varies). The breaking of bread is, I think, the reason for flying (or training? railing? uh-oh) me to the actual physical location — obviously all the rest could happen on zoom, but humans are animals that like to eat socially, and cement social bonds by sharing food. Lunch with grad students is always fun because I get a bunch of important grad student gossip. Grad student gossip is so important to learning about the health and functioning of a department: are they unionized? Paid reasonably? Like their advisors? Like their classes? It feels very important to me to know when a whole grad cohort hates their dean or building or just got their funding cut — these things do impact the future of the field, in a very dominos way, and being as I don’t have grad students myself, this is the only way I have to take the pulse of the next generation of my field. The dinner is equally important for intel-gathering, of course, but also tends to be where I say “oh my god let’s coauthor on this idea, for real, email me” and such things.
But what they’re paying for, I guess, is my brain. Right? If it were just the talk, it would definitely be the case that they’re paying for my brain. The rest of my body is functionally one of those couriers who takes an organ from state to state for donation — my sore feet and aching back and frizzy hair and travel-greasy skin are the styrofoam cooler and the dry ice and the courier to bring the organ of interest to the place where it is needed. Except for the eating! The brain is involved in that, sure, and the brain is probably doing all the excitement and emails and gossip and bonding, but that still requires hands and mouth and teeth and gullet. When I am transported out to give a talk, part of what is important is that they are getting my whole body, my sore feet to walk around their hallways and my hands for taking notes upside-down on a notebook page and my hair to get taller and taller through the course of the day. They need my body also for its symbolic weight: several departments have put temporary All Gender signs on their otherwise-binary-gendered bathrooms just in honor of my presence. And basically every time I go and give a talk, one shy grad student who didn’t make it to lunch comes up to me afterwards to tell me how glad they are to see a trans linguist. It’s important that I show up with my trans and disabled body so they can see that I can be that and also be a very desirable and valued member of the field. I have to show up with my sensitive autistic ears and my ergonomic mouse and orthopedic shoes and the trans sticker on my laptop and my voice sounding like it does.
Giving talks — this kind, at least — is hard on my body. Even when I take the train or plane and then a cab to the department, it’s somehow always way more walking than I expect. I have to plan out what I can carry in my backpack and balance things that will take care of my body’s needs (clif bar, water, two different kinds of noise cancelling headphones, extra masks, meds, umbrella, cane, ergonomic mouse) with what will hurt to carry (too many of these very heavy in a backpack, crunching my shoulders all out). Wearing hard pants and shoes all day is sensory expensive; being in public is sensory expensive; being on planes or trains is sensory expensive. Standing in line. Being socially on the whole time (I ask for breaks, now, when they plan my schedule). I love it but it costs a lot of spoons, but I do it because of the important parts where they do want me there for not just brain-in-a-jar reasons, and because I get things out of it that are also not just brain-in-a-jar benefits.
Anyways times like this is when I see a great deal of value in that word “bodymind” that comes from crip theory — a word I learned from Jon Henner, who taught us so much, who I still can’t talk or write about without crying. I’m not a brain in a jar. My whole body is me, my whole body has to be an academic. My teeth and stomach do as much academic work as my wrists and shoulders. My feet do a ton of academic work. My cane and headphones, when I absorb those into the outline of what is within / outside my bodymind — those do a lot of academic work too. My laptop stickers and water bottle and backpack with the fraying strap, they’re all absolutely crucial to the process of giving a talk.
It’s my whole body that says at the end — thanks again so much for having me, I hope we can follow up on email soon! As always I am so grateful for all the questions and comments and discussion.
Like my kinda oversharing personal blogposts about being a disabled academic? I also have one about the connection between academic interests and special interests; musings about the relationship between substance use and work/life boundaries; and another about how parts work helps me do executive function when I have turbo-anxiety. You can also get updates about such things as “when I have eaten a really good sandwich” and “am I having a good teaching day” on my bluesky.
