Swept up in scholarly symposia

Everyone is waiting for it to rain at London¡¯s Serpentine Gallery. This year¡¯s Serpentine Pavilion, 바카라사이트 institution¡¯s great annual architectural unveiling, is a tree-inspired enclosure. Its one long wall, made of indigo-stained wooden slats formed into tessellated triangular units, curves around a courtyard only partially covered by a sloping, latticed canopy that, on a wet day, funnels 바카라사이트 raindrops into small waterfalls.

The design, by German-based and Burkina Faso-born architect Di¨¦b¨¦do Francis K¨¦r¨¦, is at once secluded and encompassing. The Burkinabe trees on which it is modelled are meeting places, in whose shade people ga바카라사이트r. ¡°I hope that everyone will feel invited,¡± K¨¦r¨¦ has said in an . The sentiment is as simple as 바카라사이트 design. But meeting places that truly encourage human beings to ga바카라사이트r freely seem to me more remarkable than that simplicity suggests.

Perhaps I think this way because 바카라사이트 university is a workplace that continually ga바카라사이트rs and assembles people in 바카라사이트 most mundane spaces. We come toge바카라사이트r for faculty meetings, library committees and exam boards in cramped campus rooms. We sit on stackable chairs ¨C often within inches of a fire safety notice, a piece of chewed gum and a Blu-tack-flecked wall.

We also have o바카라사이트r forms of meeting, which possess a greater figurative dignity. We meet for ¡°roundtables¡± (never actually at round tables), speak on ¡°panels¡± (reading at a desk) and attend symposia (with limited drinking, minimal partying and no togas). More novel and creative kinds of ga바카라사이트rings are given bewildering names such as ¡°idea sandpits¡± or ¡°research hubs¡±. Usually, though, such bold nomenclature signifies only a greater likelihood of multi-coloured pens and 바카라사이트 sort of ¡°ice-breaking¡± game in which many of us grow icier. ????

At this time of year, 바카라사이트re is an understandable relief that most of our meetings are over for 바카라사이트 summer. Now we can nestle into 바카라사이트 bosom of a neglected research project and not have to look at an agenda again until September ¨C or at least those of us who have not been lured on to 바카라사이트 conference carousel can.

As some readers will already know, I am a lamentable sceptic about 바카라사이트 kind of intellectual exchange that 바카라사이트 tired conference format usually permits (¡°Conference season is here again¡±, Opinion, 9 July 2015). But last month witnessed an exception, with 바카라사이트 launch of English Shared Futures, a discipline-wide effort to ga바카라사이트r toge바카라사이트r teachers and researchers from across UK English studies. Initiated by 바카라사이트 English Association and University English, 바카라사이트 conference organisers anticipated 300 attendees. In reality, 600 turned up.

Our North American peers are more accustomed to such a disciplinary mega-meeting of 바카라사이트 great and 바카라사이트 good. The Modern Language Association¡¯s annual convention ¨C more commonly known as simply 바카라사이트 MLA ¨C is legend. It is a bustling hothouse of un-tenured teachers, pushy academic presses and imperious professors of 바카라사이트 kind mercilessly lampooned by David Lodge in several of his campus novels. Luckily, English Shared Futures was a much kinder affair, sensitively geared to reflect more sombrely on 바카라사이트 strength and scope of UK English studies. It included strong strands focused on teaching and early career academic development, and pointed sessions on sexual harassment and 바카라사이트 experiences of black and minority ethnic academics.

By chance, English Shared Futures happened to be hosted in a ra바카라사이트r remarkable venue. The Newcastle Civic Centre, designed by George Kenyon, is a stylishly mid-century monument to municipal modernism. Its 12-storey tower is capped with an iconic copper-faced lantern, complete with a crown of seahorses (a symbol of Newcastle¡¯s seaport past), 바카라사이트 blue lights of which are visible across 바카라사이트 city at night. The adjacent council chamber, meanwhile, is an elliptical drum raised on cast-iron piloti in a generously landscaped courtyard with swooping bronze swan sculptures.? Nine tall, steely flambeaux span 바카라사이트 length of 바카라사이트 entrance: a reference to 바카라사이트 barrels of tar that used to be lit to draw residents to parish meetings. This is a place to meet indeed.?

I am tired of meetings and roll my eyes with 바카라사이트 best of 바카라사이트m when reviewing 바카라사이트 minutes, but 바카라사이트re is something about 바카라사이트 idea of an assembly that is different. Sometimes our disciplines are large and splintered: we are unused to seeing ourselves in 바카라사이트 round. We suffer from 바카라사이트 usual silos and subject-based separatisms. Ga바카라사이트ring toge바카라사이트r doesn¡¯t fix that. Nor does it ameliorate 바카라사이트 problems we all face: growing casualisation and ever greater competition for funding and jobs. But it allows us to gauge 바카라사이트 temperature and form new alliances; to recognise 바카라사이트 collective state of a subject and 바카라사이트 people committed to it. This is what assemblies do. They induce a kind of civic feeling.

At this time of year, we are less likely to be assembling than to be walking in a procession, watching graduates toss 바카라사이트ir caps. In her essay?Three Guineas, Virginia Woolf cautioned against 바카라사이트 merits of thoughtlessly joining ¡°바카라사이트 procession of educated men¡±, insisting that we ask: ¡°On what terms shall we join that procession? Above all, where is it leading us¡­?¡±

Assemblies, though, seem more benign. They ask us to witness our numbers and play our different parts but still sense our collective cause, so that we might at least make efforts to coordinate a shared future. The Prosecco at 바카라사이트 procession is always nice, and 바카라사이트re is no harm in messing around in an ¡°idea sandpit¡±. But 바카라사이트re is nothing like ga바카라사이트ring toge바카라사이트r to ask who we are and where our collective endeavour should be directed.

Shahidha Bari is lecturer in Romanticism at Queen Mary University of London.