[Last week was
one of the busiest of my professional career, featuring a series of great
Boston events, culminating in the 51st Northeast
MLA convention. So this week I’ll recap that convention and those other
events, leading up to a special weekend post on what’s next for NeMLA and how
you can get involved!]
On two overt
initiatives and one subtler form of mentorship at NeMLA.
1)
The CV Clinic: I remember quite clearly when my
friend, the feminist comp/rhet scholar (and truly badass poet) Indigo Eriksen, created this new
initiative for grad students and early career folks at NeMLA. I’m pretty sure I
knew right away how valuable this service would be, in no small measure because
I sure could have used such advice and guidance in my own grad school and adjunct
faculty stages. And through my own sessions at just about every CV clinic
since that first version (something like 6 or 7 years ago now), I’ve come to
believe it’s one of the very best things any conference could offer—not just
for the practical advice, but also and perhaps especially because it builds
connections, conversations, and networks that can endure far beyond these
30-minute sessions. I’ve kept in touch with many of my CV Clinic mentees, and
value these relationships a great deal.
2)
Publishing Mentorship: Over the last couple
years, another remarkably badass scholar and NeMLA community builder, Claire Sommers, has
taken over the leadership of those professional sides to the conference and
organization and added new ones to the mix as well. That latter list includes
the inspiring Undergraduate
Forum, but also a less visible and equally important initiative, the Publishing
Mentorship program. I talked at the conference on a session (organized by
Claire, natch) about my experiences in the first year of that program, which
certainly seems to have been helpful to my mentee but which I know for a fact
was deeply meaningful for me. The chance to read, give feedback on, learn from,
and help move forward the work of a fellow scholar with whom we have no other
relationship—meaning that this particular dynamic can be entirely about this
form of support and collegiality—is quite simply different from any other side
to the profession I’ve experienced, and I recommend that everyone who has the
chance to take part in an initiative like this find a way to do so.
3)
Annual Reconnection: This is a complex point,
and I don’t imagine I’ll be able to do justice to it in a few sentences. But I
found myself thinking a lot at this conference about the number of people whom
I see at and around NeMLA (and in most of those cases only at and around
NeMLA), but with whom (because those connections are more or less annual and
thus part of one of my more consistent professional communities) I feel that I’m
engaging in often decade-long conversations. That’s a truly meaningful dynamic in
lots of ways, but perhaps an underappreciated one is that it helps us both talk
about and reflect on our stages and arc, our continuities and changes, the
ongoing development of our work and career. I can safely say that I’m a
significantly better scholar thanks to my NeMLA connections and relationships,
which is just one more argument for being part of this exemplary community and
conference!
Special post
this weekend,
Ben
PS. If you were
at NeMLA 2020, I’d love to hear your thoughts and takeaways as well!
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