CAMPUS

Will this be covered in the next stylebook?

As I mentioned previously, the Modern Language Association’s annual conference has been going on. Well, apparently that’s not all that’s been going on. As Inside Higher Ed reports*:

The annual meeting of the MLA has long been known (and frequently satirized) for the sexual puns and imagery of paper titles [...] As the MLA meeting concluded on Tuesday, however, one session sought to put sex at academic conferences center stage. Drawing on literature, theory and experience, panelists considered not only the role of sex at conferences, but talked about identity, love and (perhaps more timely to many MLA attendees) the dismal academic job market.

*Warning: The article talks about casual sex between academics, which might be inappropriate for children and those with strong mental imagery.

The panel goes on to analyze and categorize the phenomenon of the conference hook-up, specifically at the MLA conference. The whole thing is by turns surreal and strangely appropriate, given academia’s semi-cloistered environment and narcissistic tendencies. Also, (thinking of most of my professors) it’s pretty gross.

On the upside, the panel reported monogamous relations at the conference were on the rise. Take heart, potential suitors; those lone wolves of academia might be tamed yet!