AAA Summary

As I suspected Montreal was far too busy for updating my blog. Walked around the old town a bit, went to Schwartz, and many good laughs were had. Besides this, and the main reason for the trip, the AAA conference was a wonderful experience.

I went to a number of sessions that dealt with museums, heritage, memory, collections, and tourism—all of which had something that will prove useful when it comes time to do research for my MA thesis. I was able attend the following sessions at least in part:

– 3-0225: Tours and Traces: Breaking New Ground in the Anthropology of Tourism and Heritage- Papers in Honor of Nelson Graburn
– 3-0685: Unruly Things: Museums and the Co-Production of Knowledge
– 3-0810: Querying “Art”, “Tradition”, Museums, and Heritage- Papers in Honor of Nelson Graburn
– 4-0235: The Rhetoric of Heritage
– 4-1065: Living Collections: Social Networks of Space, Place, and Materiality
– 5-0215: Museums and Communities
– 5-0620: Re-Activating the Legacy: Current Research on Museum Collections (Poster Session)

I took a lot of notes that I am going to need to go through in order to synthesize all the information I received, but I can say that I have a list of new authors to look into, while other that were already on my list were confirmed (i.e. Nina Simon).

One of the other highlights was getting to see Gabriel Moshenska speak after his work on the archaeology of bombing sites played so heavily into our readings about memory in Archaeological Theory a couple of weeks ago. I really enjoyed his talk and was glad that he touched on his excavations of neighbourhoods destroyed during WWII air raids in Britain.

On Saturday I went Exhibit Hall (had stopped by earlier in the week but finally had some time to devote to exploring on Saturday), under the advisement of M I picked up a book for my Political Economy class next semester. I was also able to grab a bunch of order forms from printing companies that service the discipline, and may be able to order a number of my books for next semester at a discount for having attended the AAAs—bonus! I also picked up some information about Documentary Educational Resources, a bookmark with a link to the archive collection at the Smithsonian, and a card for the Human Relations Area Files. To top it all off I received a free book from Vanderbilt University Press, and a glasses cleaner from Duke University Press for being a follower on Twitter. All in all a good Exhibit Hall experience.

Finally, I would like to take a moment to thank Naomi Leite, Jennifer Wagelie, and Emily Stokes-Rees for taking the time to speak with me; Olivia Littles Erickson for her advice about word clouds/wordles; and Bill Wood, and Larry Zimmerman for all their advice about research to look into.

Hello Montreal!

Left bright and early this morning for Montreal! The drive was great, props to M and B for driving the van. Lots of snacks, music, and good conversation to be had– on top of reading some Ingold.

C, M, and I checked into our hotel, relaxed for a bit, and then headed out to find some food. We ended up wandering for a while before ending up in ‘Chinatown’ for Vietnamese food, particularly pho. This resulted in lots of puns based on ‘pho’, and even more laughter. M loved his first pho experience.

After dinner we headed back to the hotel, making a quick stop at the group floor of Montreal Convention Center just to see what it was like prior to the swarms of anthropologists.

Have my schedule ready for tomorrow… Hello Montreal and AAA2011!

Ready, Steady, Go!

So, one of the reasons I chose to start this blog when I did was because of the American Anthropological Association‘s annual conference which is taking place this week in Montreal. As a spur of the moment decision I decided to join a few friends on their trip to the conference two weeks ago. I knew I was going to need to start blogging before that since I wanted to be able to write about my trip– hence the inception of Memories Bookshelf on Sunday.

I’ve never been to Montreal, but I hear it is fabulous, which makes me very excited. I’m even more excited for all of the sessions with connections to memory, commemoration, heritage, and museums(!). Hopefully I’ll be able to take some good notes, which may act as jumping off points for my MA research and thesis. And besides being just an all around good time the trip will be an excellent opportunity to start networking and get some information about the publishers, film producers, resources, and organizations that serve the discipline (Exhibit Hall is going to be near the top of my to do list for sure!).

This is going to be my first conference so I’m not exactly sure what to expect but it will be nice to have a little bit of an understanding of the format before going to present at one or when attending for a job interview in the future– regardless of what discipline said future conference is for.

The blogging could go either way for this endeavor, I’m not sure how much time I will have each day to devote to it, so I am going to take notes in case an update is delayed. I will, however, be tweeting about the AAA conference rather frequently so feel free to follow me at @AlisonDeplonty.

Regardless, my bags are packed, itinerary is printed, and the blog is started and off to a good start. Which just leaves the 8 and a half hour drive tomorrow between me and the 2011 AAAs.