Recently, I dedicated two weekends to that time-honored graduate-student rite of passage, the academic conference. In those intervals between the battery of panel sessions spent wandering hotel ...

A lively lecture full of insight, wit and passion for a subject can linger long in the memory. So, too, can a truly awful presentation. Having watched her fair share of terrible academic talks, as ...

It’s conference season, and that means we will soon be suffering together in some drab meeting room. The minutes will tick by as an earnest scholar reads — word for excruciating word — a jargon-filled ...

Since 2012, I have attended numerous academic conferences with the title of “Independent Scholar” on my name badge. I haven’t been affiliated with an institution since finishing my postdoctoral ...