A Good Paper is a Presented Paper

If you follow me on Twitter (and if you don't, why aren't you?), then you've probably picked up on the fact that I've returned from Switzerland after presenting my paper on Ernest Hemingway and spending a week at the Hemingway Society's bi-annual conference. The whole week and my experiences there were all absolutely amazing. The paper itself went well, as I was very happy with what I read and the ideas I presented, and the feedback I got in return was also very positive. Overall, I was amazed at how nice and accepting everyone was, as scholars whom I had previously read and knew about from my own work were welcoming me into this society and this community of scholarship.

I knew that, from the beginning, I was a bit on the outside as this was my first time at a Hemingway Society's conference and I only had a masters degree (most everyone there was either working on a PhD or already had one and was teaching) and I was in-between (as I had just graduated with the masters, yet I obviously am not enrolled in a PhD program for the fall). I was green, new and a little bit on the outside yet everyone there treated me like I belonged and made me feel like I was a part of that intellectual community and that there was a place for me within that world.

But in addition to taking an idea I pursued and expanded upon in the paper I presented, one that I hope to revisit in my future work on Hemingway, I feel like the most important part of this entire experience was how re-invigorated I felt at the end. I've talked a great deal about it here, but I've been feeling very... blasé about scholarship and my academic work recently. I haven't felt quite as passionate or inspired as I did in the past, and the thesis-writing process was a very difficult one for me because of that. I'm happy with the work I did and I certainly did enjoy it at certain points, but there were other points where the process felt like a drag and I was more focused on the whole process being over rather than the completed work I would produce at the end. I definitely didn't feel that way writing my undergraduate thesis, and I think it was the result of everything involved wearing me down (certainly my recent experience with applications) and not feeling as enjoyable. Even in the days before this conference, I was thinking about it more as something I would do and then be done with.

But once I got there and interacted and conversed with so many great scholars and bright minds, I was totally reinvigorated. I had that same energy and enthusiasm I felt back when I was writing about Kerouac in my final semester at Texas. I wanted to read more and learn more about Hemingway, consider ideas I had never considered and work towards producing things that further illuminated the intricacies of his writing. I was reminded of how much I love the study of literature, and that I want to be a part of this world and community because I belong in this community. I have insights to make and contribute, thoughts to share and analysis to present, and these are all the things that I do well and that I enjoy. Sometimes it's very easy for me to forget just how much I enjoy this life, the life of the mind, and I need experiences like the one I just had in Switzerland to remind me how much I love and enjoy this discipline of literature.

While the more direct and professional benefit is the paper itself and the contacts I made, as these are the things that will help me as I attempt to pursue a PhD, the excitement and enthusiasm that has returned to me is (personally, at least) more valuable and for that reason alone, this trip and conference was an absolute success for me.