20140728.0728

With my long engagement in a number of things that are definitively nerdy--role-playing games, for example, or fantasy authors such as Tolkien and Hobb, and even the very fact that I am a scholar in the academic humanities--it may be something of a surprise that I am not a great attender of conventions. I have never gone to either the San Diego Comic Con or the New York Comic Con, and only twice (and as an undergraduate) did I go to Gen Con in Indianapolis; I have not been to either of the other two. I do not even go to more local cons, accepting as valid the reasons of cost and time that would preclude going to the major conventions. Yet it seems like the kind of thing that a nerd ought to do, and to do often.

Again, though, cost is an issue. Time is also an issue. And I do something not unlike convention-going in my conference attendance. Both are gatherings of like-minded people who come together to share insights and attempt to convince others of their own rightness, and they center around intellectual and artistic exercises that the main thrust of US popular culture only tangentially addresses. Yes, comic book movies are big business. The books themselves are not as much. Nor yet are various cartoons and games, or cosplay taken from the lot. Yes, colleges and universities are big business (which is its own problem). The classroom itself is not as much. Nor yet are various subjects and research apparatus, or the ideas taken from the lot. I admit that the dress-up play at academic conferences is not as pervasive as cosplay at conventions, but it does happen, and it is sometimes quite...ornate. It is also more likely to end up in actual blows traded; judicial duel reenactments happen. And it is the case that conferences will talk about comic books and movies, television shows and games, popular fiction and fan culture; my own work has done so on more than one occasion, and I am far from alone in giving such talks. Even though I do not attend conventions, then, I still get experiences much like them. (I suppose it once again links nerdiness to scholarship. Somehow, it is not a surprise.)

I do not disdain conventions, certainly. I recall my attendance at Gen Con 2013 and Gen Con 2014 with fondness; I was in good company and did a number of nifty things with them and with other people entirely. But I have to wonder if the convention experience is not for me a thing done in youth, to which I may not or cannot return as a full adult with responsibilities that exceed doing well in my own classes. I have to wonder even how much conference work I can continue to do, given the costs involved and the obligations I have at home. Some must be done, of course, and I am happy to do it. But how much more, and how much longer, I am not at all certain.