Author and creative writing teacher Rachel Toor writes in the latest Chronicle of Higher Education (subscription required) about the problems of either dashing off talks the night before, or just reading papers:

More often than I can believe, someone will preface a reading by saying, “I just wrote this last night.” Why on earth, I wonder, would you read something that raw? Generally public readings are set up months in advance. It’s not like the speakers don’t know they’re going to have to have something ready…. But then I remembered that arrogance is often the conjoined twin of insecurity. What those writers wanted us to know, perhaps, was that this new work was the result of pure talent: Just think, audience, how good this would be if it were coupled with labor? If the piece stinks, it’s simply a matter of timing. It’s not my fault. I could do better, really, I could. I just didn’t have the time….

Most academics don’t present hastily written papers. But they do something almost as bad. They read their papers aloud. Some professors read their lectures. It’s common practice, I know, but frankly, it bugs me. It’s hard enough for an audience to follow a short story, where, presumably, some attention is being paid to crafting narrative tension. Having to track audibly an argument written in long, convoluted sentences and leaden, jargon-ridden prose can feel like a forced drowning…. Reading instead of presenting is, I think, the academic equivalent of “I just dashed this off last night.” It’s an act borne out of (choose as many as apply): fear, insecurity, arrogance, procrastination, habit, poor training, or lack of regard for the audience. It’s also just plain lazy. It’s a lot of work to think something through and then write it out as a conference paper. Taking the next step—understanding what you’ve done and figuring out how to summarize it extemporaneously—seems to be one that many are willing to forsake.

The piece is a reminder of just how different the kinds of talks I’ve done for the last few years, and the sorts of intellectual events I’m usually involved in, are from conventional academic presentations. I spend huge amounts of time preparing for the workshops I facilitate: I go over every activity, every breakout session, think about the posters I need to create, the instructions I should give, what I should and shouldn’t say, and what outcomes the client and I want.

All this preparation generates one of two things: artifacts and other materials that help organize an event (or that help participants stay self-organized and -aware of what they’re supposed to be doing); and a clearer understanding of what I need to do for the day to succeed. What that preparation doesn’t generate is a perfectly-planned day: all that planning, I know, is to prepare me to succeed despite the fact that something is going to happen that requires me to adapt and adjust.

What you absolutely cannot do in an environment like this is throw something together the night before; nor can you write it all out and assume you can just follow the script mindlessly– the two options Toor describes.

Why are these events so different? Two reasons. First, the faciltiated workshop, much more than the academic conference, is explicitly about the production of shared meaning. The aim after a day or two is to have a common vision of the future, a common roadmap, and common understanding of what an organization’s strategy should be. You don’t necessarily have that as an outcome of a scholarly conference. Second, workshops are a means to an end, not an end in themselves: they’re supposed to catalyze action, not be the end of action.

With the proliferation of interesting kinds of workshops, novel forms of meetings, and now the rise of the unconference, I think it’s high time we thought about how we could reinvent academic (maybe mainly humanities) conferences.

There’s no reason we can’t create a better model, that satisfies conference speakers’ professional needs (e.g., the line on the c.v., the publicity, the chance to interview for jobs) and personal ones (e.g., the opportunity for subsidized travel to see your friends), as well as the needs of conference organizers and the profession/discipline as a whole– and is a lot more interesting and engaging.

So many academic events I go to end on an optimistic note, or generate lots of interest in moving on to actually doing something… but then dissipate, and at best yield an edited volume. Sitting in a stuffy (or over air-conditioned) hotel conference room, listening to someone read a talk, and feeling the collective interest and enthusiasm generated by the event evaporate days afterward– aren’t there better ways we could all spend our time?

Seriously, I’d really like to do this.