SF part I.

Today I’m on my way to San Francisco for the Popular Culture Association/ American Culture Association conference. My flight was delayed this morning, but only for about half an hour, so I should still have time to check in and register before my presentation this evening.

This is the largest conference I’ve ever been to as an academic. The estimated number of participants is around 3,000 people, and there are 30 concurrent sessions running at a time for four straight days. Paradoxically, this has the effect of making me less nervous about my own presentation. There are so many options to choose from in every single timeslot that I’m betting my audience will be fairly small. Also, my panel was assigned to the 6:30-8 p.m. timeslot on the conference’s first day, which means many people will skip out to go to dinner and get a head start on their first evening out of town.

I’m speaking on “The Hegemonic Geek: Gender in Live-Action Role Playing.” My basic argument is that roleplaying activities allow geeks of both genders to access hegemonic values that they can’t normally take on in real life. For example, a short, thin male doesn’t usually win fights in your typical high school, but can be a powerful warrior in a roleplaying environment.

I’m looking forward to comments and arguments from my audience about whether this kind of access is good or bad. For example: do males who roleplay combat exhibit more violent behaviors out of game, or does the game give them instead an acceptable release for aggressive tensions? Do females who take on roles such as “serving wench” and “high-borne lady” explore useful terrain, or simply reinforce existing stereotypes about women’s beauty and sexuality? I’ll blog later tonight or tomorrow about how the presentation went, and tell you about the other people on my panel.

On a personal note, I missed my family by the time I hit the bridge to terminal A in the airport. The bug loves the moving walkways, and it felt really odd to be moving through the airport without counting to three and jumping on the escalators. Thanks to recent technology purchases, I now have an iSight, so I can make a video call to them and see how their day was. It’s probably immediately obvious that I don’t travel much on my own, for work or otherwise. It blows my mind that there are women who do this monthly, or weekly, and have found ways to manage emotionally as well as practically. This trip is relatively short and it will be enjoyable (Daytime naps! Cable! See “what I’d do with a weekend alone…” post below). However, one of the reasons it’s so great is that I only do this once or twice a year, so I look forward to it instead of dreading one more set of airport hassles.