Papay Convivium

Eager readers of this blog, both of them, will have noticed that there’s a new tab top right for something called the Papay Convivium, which was trailed here.  What it’s all about is on the tab, so I won’t spoil your anticipation, except to say, modestly, that it’s an attempt to re-define and transform the nature of an academic conference.  Any questions, comments, expostulations etc, just post them below.  We’re pretty sure it’ll work out, and of course we’ll be live-blogging it here and probably elsewhere.  If anyone has funding and ideas, or one and not the other, and wants to hold convivia on Papay, or find out more about the idea, just drop me a line.

Comments

3 responses to “Papay Convivium”

  1. Pete Smith avatar

    it looks a fantastic idea- if only I could get a week off work to do something similar 🙂

    1. Paul Maharg avatar

      Yes the commitment is not trivial Pete. But increasingly I’ve been dissatisfied with the usual conference rush: all that travel (+ time & money organising and paying for it), the fees, etc — then we’re there for some quick networking and a 20 min presentation of ideas, laconic Q&A, conf dinner and then back again — having achieved precisely what? Sure, we can use conferences as construction yards for articles, chapters, etc, or for meeting colleagues. But maybe public funds could be better used to support us in our core work which, on my interpretation, is thinking deeply about issues, concepts and practices that matter to us and to society, creating a dialogue around such thoughts and where possible turning dialogue into praxis. Deep, resonant, collaborative thinking takes time (and I know from our discussions that you agree with me on this), so the Papay convivium is an experiment to give academics the time to work on a constellation of issues and see what we can come up with. If it works I’ll be seeking funding to hold similar events. Hey, how about a future collaborative Papay convivium, LawSync + ANU’s new centre + any others interested? There’s a truly global event…;)

  2. Pete Smith avatar

    That would be amazing if we could pull it off 🙂