Presentation Guidelines

Last year, when I was in the process of organizing a conference on “The Meanings and Manifestations of Patriotism in the United States and China,” I decided that the usual format of academic conferences (30 page paper, discussant, questions from the audience) was not well-suited to the larger goal of increasing student exposure and participation in scholarly life. Presentations often last longer than 20 minutes, and students’ attention tends to fade after 50 minutes. Moreover, few can read the papers in advance, and are sometimes overwhelmed by unfamiliar information. Instead, I decided to experiment with a different format. I organized a “symposium” around a list of questions (for example: “Should some form of National Service be required of young Americans?”) and asked the participants to prepare, in advance, 2-3 pages on their thoughts and ideas on the subject. The result was a semi-structured but freewheeling discussion about the various topics. Students were able to jump in with comments because they were less intimated by the format, and the academics generally felt more relaxed and open without having to present a formal paper.

I have something roughly similar in mind for the symposium on Health, Law and Justice in Asia. As I noted in the invitation letters your received, I do not want you to write a formal conference paper, but rather 5-7 pages that include the research findings (or experiences as the case may be) that speak most directly to the general topic of the symposium. Since there is no uniform measure of “justice,” I imagine that you will interpret this differently, which is fine with me. (A debate between an economist, a lawyer and a religion professor would be great as far as I am concerned). In addition, I would like you to come up with several provocative questions that can serve as the basis for a roundtable discussion. My hope is that students will be comfortable participating in these, and that the academics will feel intellectually challenged as well.

In the spirit of democracy, you will serve as a roundtable leader for your presentation. (Each presenter will have 50 minutes for the presentation and the discussion). Those of you who are familiar with my work know that I am not an expert on health issues—I want to learn from you—so it would be inappropriate for me to take on the role of “chairman/discussion leader” for each topic. If you are able to coordinate with your co-presenter beforehand, you might want to arrange your time somewhat differently: you present your papers one directly after the other, and then bring to the floor a joint list of questions which you prepared in advance after mutual discussion (e-mails). I’ll leave this up to you.

So that we can provide these short papers to everyone in advance, please email them to Devi Bengfort. She will then post them on the symposium website and also have hard copies available at the conference site. The deadline for submission is April 17th