What I’m feeling

I think I’ve finally been able to identify a large part of what’s been causing my “slump” here in Atlanta at the AAR/SBL meeting: I’m feeling a growing sense of insecurity about my own role in this world. I think I’ve tried to rationalize that, or help stiffen my sense of who I am, by pointing to the enormous costs involves in this meeting, and the obvious waste and consumption… all of which are accurate critiques, and help to remind me that I want to ground my sense of who I am and what I’m about in a community committed to justice. But I think the underlying problem I’m not dealing with well is simply a feeling of deep inadequacy. It’s really hard not to feel plain stupid when you’re walking around book exhibits piled high with interesting books, when you’re going in and out of paper sessions where people are reading papers with great erudition from disciplines you’re barely on reading acquaintance with, and where the sheer amount of thought taking place can’t possible be grasped by one person in a weekend, let alone a year, or a career. I think that’s one reason why I find the idea of putting papers up on the web so appealing. The good aspect of it would be that it makes the papers available instantly to a worldwide community. But the downside is that you would still have to choose which ones to show up to for discussion. There really is no way to adequately grasp all of what is being shared here. And that makes the need to go into “disciplinary” settings so compelling. At least in a small “silo” you can become familiar enough with the people and the ideas to “master” them. Of course, there’s a huge disadvantage there — especially for someone like me — because it pretty much rules interdisciplinary work out of order. These two organizations, the AAR and the SBL, are getting ready to split back into separate annual meetings in a couple of years and I haven’t a clue what I’ll do when that happens. I can barely afford to come to the joint meeting, there’s very little chance I’ll be able to come to both. But which one will be the right one to come to? This year I’ve done a pre-conference, all day workshop with a colleague of mine for an SBL group, and I’m sharing my paper in an AAR group. That’s about as evenly split as you can get! And the papers I’m interested in fall into both organizations. There’s something just a bit problematic about the decision to split coming at a time when younger scholars such as myself, working in synthetic, interdisciplinary ways, are just beginning to weave the two organizations together more organically. Sigh. Somehow it helps me to name my feelings. It doesn’t erase the feeling of inadequacy, but it doesn’t feel quite so overwhelming, and it lends me some empathy for those who desperately want to hang on to disciplinary lines.