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Pacific APA Program Chair Colin Marshall reflects on the recent virtual APA, which may prove to be the last. Curious what readers who attend APA meetings more than I do think about all this.
Just a quick note to say that I thought these points were really well-taken. I registered for this year’s APA Pacific and thought it was really well-run. I’m sorry to hear that fewer people registered and/or submitted. I get it–it’s less exciting for some people who want to see their colleagues in person. But, on the other hand, a virtual APA is in principle available to philosophers around the world… and given that the APA is ending this experiment prematurely, they won’t have the chance to learn about the opportunity. To be clear, though, I appreciate the APA trying the experiment.
“But, on the other hand, a virtual APA is in principle available to philosophers around the world”
This is often said about on-line conferences, but I want to push back on it some. The most extreme cases are ones for people in places like Australia (me, for example) and much of Asia. An on-line APA is actually not available to me, because almost all of it will take place in the middle of the night for me. But, the time zone difference is significant even for people less far away. For example, the APA typically starts having sessions at 9am, and goes until 6pm (sometimes later.) That’s 4pm until 2am in the UK, an hour later in most of western Europe, and later still going east. It is “in principle” possible that people can participate at such hours, but most likely it would be for one or two sessions, tops. That makes it much less of a “conference” and more a small workshop (for which high registration fees, which are needed to make the conference work, seem less reasonable.) Even just from across the US the time zone difference can have a big impact, with many sessions either starting very early in the morning or ending late into the night.
This isn’t an argument against on-line conferences as such. If it were up to me I’d probably like to see the APA try a bit longer, at least, to see if they can be sustainable. But, it’s important to see that it’s simply not the case that on-line conferences are always more accessible, because the time zone difference is a significant barrier in a way that it isn’t for in-person conferences.
Thanks for this, Matt – a good point.
In scheduling the Pacific APA, Alex Sager and I did what I could to accommodate people in other time zones, but as you say, that can only do so much. We had a good number of participants from Europe, but relatively few from Australia, New Zealand, Japan, China, and other countries in similar time zones. To my mind, this is a good reason for an online APA to give a time zones-based discount.
(But just to emphasize the framing I think matters most: for philosophers outside the US who can’t safely travel here, an online conference can be much better than nothing.)
I’m a lifelong APA member with APA emeritus status. I see many reasons for the online conference, and perhaps the APA should continue with one conference streamed for those reasons. That said, I have attended dozens of APAs, mostly Central and in Chicago, and I have to say that the in-person experience, especially in specialty groups like the Philosophy of Time Society, gave me opportunities I would never have had otherwise. How else could a philosopher like me, from a university campus not so well known and even with a few publications in good journals, have chaired a session featuring young scholars Ted Sider and Dean Zimmerman? Nothing substitutes for personal interaction. How else could a chance encounter in an elevator have resulted in a co-authored paper in Analysis decades later? Not to mention going to great local restaurants and the like. Give me in-person conferences, even considering the carbon costs. They pall in stature given Trump’s carbon-promoting regressive policies.
Thanks for this comment, Alan.
I think the point you make carries weight – especially for some younger philosophers, in-person networking is invaluable.
At the same time, that is what I call the (morally) “less important comparison”: how valuable are virtual APAs vs. in-person APAs for people who can attend both. The more important comparison is how valuable is it having vs. not having virtual APAs are for people who can’t attend in-person ones. That includes some junior philosophers with (e.g.) care-giving obligations, mobility restrictions, or well-grounded worries about dangers in traveling. At the Pacific, I got to see people in those groups connect with other philosophers in ways they simply wouldn’t have otherwise. That’s why I think Helen De Cruz was right to suggest having 1/3 of the APAs online each year – which still leaves the majority of the meetings geared towards people like yourself.
Totally agreed Colin.
Thanks to Colin Marshall for an excellent document. The annual UK Analytic Legal & Political Philosophy (UKALPP) Conference now convenes through Zoom triennially, with in-person meetings in each of the other two years of any three-year period. That rotating format works admirably. Although a majority of participants in the conference prefer in-person meetings, a substantial minority (including me) prefer the Zoom format. A triennial rotation is broadly fair to everyone.
A few observations:
(1) Among the minority of participants who prefer Zoom meetings, a disproportionate number are women.
(2) The attendance at the Zoom editions of the conference is consistently higher than the attendance at the in-person editions.
(3) Because the UK ALPP Conference is a by-invitation-only event with a deliberately small enrollment (of 30-55 registrants), the costs of the conference are effectively nil when it is conducted through Zoom. I’m able to handle all the logistics myself. (During the first year when we used Zoom, I needed some help from a technician. Fortunately, I no longer need such assistance.) By contrast, the costs of the conference in the in-person format are now becoming quite formidable. We have not heretofore ever charged a registration fee, but we may have to start doing so for the in-person years.
(4) In addition to the points adduced by Colin Marshall in favor of a Zoom format, I’ll note an advantage that might not be apparent to people who are not myopic. To see people in person as well as I can see them through Zoom, I would have to be standing uncomfortably close to them. Moreover, discerning people’s names through Zoom is far less awkward than staring down at their name cards in person.
Thanks so much for this, Matthew. I hadn’t heard about UKALPP’s approach, but it sounds like an excellent model for other groups to consider. (As someone who feels very embarrassed when I forget someone’s name, I also really appreciate automatic name tags on Zoom.)
My hunch is that the logistics of in-person APA meetings are going to get more difficult, especially as fewer academics have research funds, border crossings are getting more… complicated, and more people (like me) become frustrated with the APA as an organization. So it’s at least conceivable that financial considerations alone will push the APA back to some sort of alternating model.
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