Well, they have some stoves and heaters that will get them through the winter, but by April they will be able to mobilize the 99% big time.
Actually, the MPSA shut-down will probably be the first major "action" of the spring. Everyone will be looking forward to getting back outside.
What? No poster sessions?
Is a poster at MPSA worth it?
^ It's called a "cost-benefit analysis," chief. Do it.
For me, it comes with a booty call with grad student. Worth it.
"it's actually NOT true that everyone gets in
I'm pretty skeptical about this. I went to a mediocre graduate program, and all my brain-dead classmates routinely submitted their dreary seminar papers, and they were always accepted. I now teach at a University with a crappy MA program that turns down no one whose check clears, and our god-awful students routinely present their stupid papers at MPSA. As far as I know, none of them have ever been rejected."
what schools?
If there is a move to Occupy this conference, will the participants need to conform to normal conference protocol? For example:
"What I am organizing today is really a work in progress, part of a larger revolutionary movement I've been working on for the past couple of years. Comments are welcome."
"I have a complete list of demands in the paper, but due to time limits I am going to provide just a few of the highlights" (read verbatim in an excruciatingly monotonous voice from handwritten notes on hotel stationary)
"Thanks for the opportunity to serve as discussant on this set of revolutionary movements. They are all excellent, and I'd encourage you to join all of them when you get a chance. I'd like to begin by identifying some common themes in this set of social movements before I offer some brief commentary on each individual movement and I will go in reverse order of how they are listed in the program...."
^ is well done, and is such a great reminder of how much I f**** HATE conferences.
kill me now please
Or kill MPSA, rather.
Anon ^^^^ is excellent, but he forgot another:
"I'd like to start by talking a little about the background of revolutionary movements before presenting the OWS..."
[12 minutes later]
"And, so, the French Revolution started in 1789 as a response to the..."
[Chair frantically waving "1 Minute" sign]
"Okay, so let me skip ahead to the list of 17 grievances that the OWS movement has, which I'll go through one by one..."
Has the MPSA call for papers come out yet? What is their acceptance rate?
"What is their acceptance rate?"
It's even higher than your mom's.
So, will MPSA attendance go way up now that APSA has been called off for the year?
^ Good question. Also, they have a significant increase in submissions, are they going to continue their asinine policy of accepting every single proposal?
Even MPSA doesn't have unlimited meeting space.
True, but until now it has had a surplus of space relative to the number of proposals. Will this change with APSA being canceled?
I doubt it will have that much of an effect. There's other conferences. The APSA cancellation now prevents a lot of international scholars from coming, many who exhausted resources just to get stuck in NYC, etc. If anything, they'll be a bump in half-assed grad papers.
Do you really think so?
Won't MPSA now be the biggest and most high-profile political science conference of the 2012-2013 year?
Surplus of space? Are they high? This is a conference that has panels in ordinary hotel rooms. The discussant can take a dump to show how they really feel about the paper.
Chicago is a great city. It is not ranked as high on the list of gay-friendly cities as Ann Arbor, which is too bad, but still a great place for a conference.
MPSA is a joke. In nearly ten years of going, I've probably only seen a presentation a year that was worthwhile.
Chicago is an open-minded city. Gays are welcome. There is no reason to boycott it. Political science has an extremely high percentage of gay men in the discipline and they will be warmly welcomed in this city. Let's get past all the boycott stuff and embrace the MPSA
Some kind of combined MPSA/Gay and Lesbian Rights conference would be a wonderful gesture, a powerful statement, and exactly what the boycott organizers of the New Orleans APSA meeting envisioned. Let's make it happen!
Why not just submit a roundtable proposal to MPSA? It will be accepted and can be held in a regular hotel room, complete with water beds, excretory performance art and whatever else you want, if you believe what is on this thread above.
MPSA panel deadline passed. How will this year's conference shape up, given there was no APSA?
It will be same as it ever was, letting the days go by....