Reflections on MLA Conventions: Ghosts of Christmases Past

I guess this is by way of another reflection brought on by the coming of a new year. Right about now many of my friends and former colleagues are getting ready to attend another MLA Convention. I see that this year it's going to be in Chicago again. I never understood why anyone would want to have a convention in Chicago in the winter, but looking back over the years I realized it's been a popular venue almost from the beginning. I remember attending one meeting in Chicago, and my memories are almost all of contending with the cold. Of course, I hate cold weather, which is why I've retired back in Texas, but still, it does seem there would be more pleasant places one could go in January (or late December as it used to be). But then we're talking about English professors, and most of them never really care to venture far from the warmth of the hotel bars, exhibit halls, or meeting rooms, so why not Chicago?

My first MLA Convention wasn't in Chicago or New York, but in San Francisco in December, 1975. I didn't know it then, but I think it was the first ever held in San Francisco, and one of only a few held in a western state. I was in graduate school at the time, soon to be a newly minted Ph.D., and just entering the horrendous English job market. Unfortunately, interviewing for jobs was a big part of MLA Conventions, and still is apparently. It's expensive, and no one seems to like it, especially those who must serve on department interview committees (something I also did at a later convention held in Houston in 1980 -- another unusual, almost unique venue for MLA). I remember going out and buying a new suit, my first as an adult, a very beautiful dark blue three-piece suit by Austin Reed that, even discounted, cost more than I'd ever spent on any other item of clothing. But new job candidates were warned to dress for success in those days, and all my fellow grad students, or those lucky enough to have lined up MLA interviews, were also buying brand new suits, so I figured it couldn't hurt.

I guess the good news, such as it was, was that I was able to line up a bunch of interviews. I don't remember exactly how many there were, but I do recall a couple fairly clearly. Most interviews are exactly alike and the repetition makes it hard for both candidates and selection committees to keep individuals and places straight. It's not uncommon, although sometimes considered bad form on the part of those scheduling interviews, to meet the previous candidate on the way in and the next candidate on the way out. During the interview you sit in a hotel chair facing a group of (in those days almost always) older men who are holding copies of your c.v. and trying to think up something to ask you about your dissertation, unless they just ask you their standard question about why you want to teach in their department. The bad news was that nothing came of those costly job interviews, not a single response beyond a thank you letter a few weeks after the convention. I was depressed for a time because of the wasted effort and money, and because in those days we couldn't afford for my wife to make the trip with me. Nor did my depression arrive only when I returned to Baltimore.

After interviews you sometimes run into someone from one of the committees that interviewed you, either in a hallway or an elevator or a line waiting for an elevator. Sometimes they recognize you; usually they have to confirm that by glancing at your name badge. My own practice was always just to smile and say hello, but sometimes they would offer bland encouragement or tell you they enjoyed the interview, which is difficult to believe under any circumstances. But on one such occasion an interviewer from a small Catholic university in New England told me not to be optimistic because they had already reached a decision and these MLA interviews were just a legal requirement to make it look good. Now I knew I was a long shot for any job at a Jesuit school, and I did wonder why they were interviewing me. I assumed it might have something to do with my dissertation on John Donne's sermons. But hearing this confession or warning or whatever it was struck me as more than depressing on the one hand and on the other made me breathe a sigh of relief that I would not be joining such a department.

Of course, MLA Conventions are much more than job interviews (however for a large part of the profession that probably is all they are), and apart from that time in Houston, when I was one of the older guys sitting in a semicircle interviewing a series of anxious job candidates, I enjoyed going to these annual meetings. In my day they were always held in the week between Christmas and New Years, and truth be told my favorites were those in New York, where there was much to do besides attending sessions. But I do fondly recall a later meeting in San Francisco when my old friend and former colleague Earle Labor took me out to the Jack London ranch for a wine and cheese reception that was both memorable and great fun. We drank Jack London cabernet and actually went to look at the still impressive ruins of Jack's dream house. There was also an enjoyable convention in New Orleans, where my wife and I stayed in a famous French Quarter hotel and reconnected with old friends from grad school and my former department at Centenary College and ate some truly memorable meals.

But on both of those occasions I was no longer paying attention either to job interviews or to English department politics. I was by then a government bureaucrat who had other things on his mind, especially meeting old friends and going out for meals in good restaurants. Now when those attending the convention scanned my name badge, they either asked me what NEH was, or if they were truly in the know, they asked me about getting a grant. Probably the best work I did at those conventions, and all the other professional meetings I attended, besides showing the flag and spreading the word about programs and grants, was recruiting potential panelists and reviewers, something that was always on our minds back in Washington.

The last time I was really a part of the convention was in New York in 1986, where I read a paper that actually attracted a little attention. By then I was already at NEH, although not certain I would stay there beyond my initial two-year appointment, but my paper on the origins of the English essay was from my previous life as a professor of English. It was the usual twenty minute talk followed by questions, but after our session on seventeenth-century English literature, a man I'd never met came up and invited me to speak at a conference he was organizing on the essay as a genre. And after that conference, where I met many new friends who shared my interest in essays, my brief paper grew into a somewhat longer chapter in a collection of essays on the essay that was published by a university press in 1989. I suppose that is what everyone hopes will happen at MLA Conventions, but by then it was a little anti-climactic for me, although still gratifying.

It was really later, however, that MLA Conventions actually became fun. That was when my wife started coming along, and we would meet old friends and go out and eat and see the sights and do some shopping together. I think we enjoyed New York and Philadelphia the most, where we would walk around the city and look at the store windows or go to museums. I know there must have been many reasons for changing the time of MLA to early January after the holidays, but for me part of the fun was going at Christmas time. It was part of the holiday tradition. Although I didn't actually go every year, it was something I thought about. I still look to see where the convention will be held and sometimes look in on the Twitter feed to see what's happening. Some things have changed, but much remains the same, particularly the complaints about the job market and academic politics of various kinds. This year they'll no doubt be lamenting the Chicago weather.