a thought, in the midst of preparing a conference paper

[fox]

ooh.  maybe nobody will come.  if nobody comes, do i still have to present?

Comments

[sharp-tongue.livejournal.com]

It's like the age old question, if a tree falls in the woods and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?

The answer is yes. Yes, you do.

:)

[angevin2.livejournal.com]

I gave a paper once where there was only one person in attendance who was not directly involved in the session, because really, who wants to go to a panel on early Tudor literature at 8:30 on a Sunday morning? It was weird. And I was disappointed because it's a good paper and I wanted more people to hear it. (All of the papers were good really; it was a terrific panel.) At any rate, we'd all decided to read our papers anyway and discuss them even if nobody showed, but everybody involved was from my program so there was no real formality there.

(Besides, on the first page of my paper there was a line about the contents of Cardinal Wolsey's chamberpot during his last illness, as recorded by his gentleman-usher George Cavendish. Try to tell me that isn't fascinating.)

[orange852.livejournal.com]

Yes, because there are people lurking in the woodwork, waiting for you to chicken out so they can get it on tape and post it to the internet for the rest of us to cackle over.

That's it, yup.

[wholenother.livejournal.com]

Are you the only person on the panel?