Navigating the Intersections of Faith, Knowledge, and Reason.
Attending academic conferences in-person and now online is a major part of networking in Academia. National and international conferences are hosted year-round to connect scholars with other scholars and new ideas, approaches, and interpretive methods. Academic Conferences exist for networking and connecting with friends, but they are so much more. Academic conferences provide opportunities to share new ideas and respond to new research. Not everyone takes full advantage of the opportunities an academic conference provides, and fortunately, there are a growing number of ways to connect online.
Some of the ways that academics connect include Academia and specific University faculty pages. Some use LinkedIn or Twitter. Others, like myself, keep a blog or home page to promote research.
The academic conferences I attend include the Annual Meeting of Society of Biblical Literature and American Acadamy of Religion (SBL/AAR), Pacific Northwest Regional Society of Biblical Literature and American Academy of Religion (PNW-SBLAAR), Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence (CSBV), Ancient Near Eastern Languages in Connection (ANELC), Institute for Biblical Research (IBR), Tyndale House Study Groups, and the occasional conference as I am invited or learn about a field of research that connects with my own.
STEM, Science Fiction, and Religion—Seventh Day of a 10 day Academic Conference in 2020 Today marked my earliest morning attendance for this virtual conference. The “wildcard” session on religious responses to the coronavirus showed up on my daily ATIV email, and I listened in even before my first cup of coffee. This was an exciting…
Synchronicity is a Thing—Sixth Day of a 10 day Virtual Academic Conference in 2020 Expecting a live stream, I planned my day and family life around this SBLAAR20 scheduled event. You can imagine how disappointed I was to find the address was pre-recorded. The one social comfort of the virtual conference is that I am…
Rest & Recoop—fifth day of a 10 day Academic Conference in 2020 There are a few publisher sessions advertised on the conference app, but after dedicating most of this week to a virtual conference, I will take a break to help my family reorder the house, dress our Christmas tree, and mostly, to sleep in…
Tech in a Virtual Conference—fourth day of a 10 day Academic Conference in 2020 I responded to a request to serve as a “tech assist” during the virtual conference. This meant that I attended a handful of sessions as a volunteer representative of SBLAAR. Today, I am hosting two sessions; one was luckily in my…
Coffee & Zoom—third day of a 10 day Academic Conference in 2020 The adrenaline that helped me wake up early this week has now gone away, and it is sheer self-determination that draws me out of bed. Although I am excited to hear some of the paper topics, I think the real motivating factor is…
Busy Just Sitting Around—second day of a 10 day Academic Conference in 2020 Scanning for name badges takes on a whole new meaning in a virtual conference. Half of the meetings I attended were set up as webinars, so scanning for important people was impossible. But, where I could see the attendees, I engaged in…
Not Zoom Fatigued Yet—First day of a 10 day Academic Conference in 2020 Today began the first-ever Virtual SBLAAR Conference. This seeming innocuous shift actually impacted my personal life in several ways. I have traveled on the third weekend of November to exotic American locations, like Boston and San Antonio, for the past decade. These…
This is the second 2020 symposium hosted by the Center for the Study of Bible and Violence. The symposium is called In the Cross Hairs: Biblical Violence in Focus. Four papers were presented on the various subject matter related to violence in the Bible, how the Bible promotes violence, or how the Bible responds to…
This is a summary of a paper presentation that was originally made as a contribution to a short series hosted by the Centre for the Study of Bible and Violence, called In the Cross Hairs: Biblical Violence in Focus, to support emerging scholarship on biblical texts that deal with, or respond to, violence. I summarized…
One of the delightful consequences of CVOID-19 lockdowns is the pressure for academic gatherings to extend invitations for online attendance. This week, I signed on at midday local time to join an event hosted in the U.K. evening. Four papers were presented and adjudicated for an award. All focused on aspects of violence in biblical…