Upcoming Academic Conferences

By Amanda Holmes

A couple of months ago, I wrote a blog about going to a philosophy conference in Arkansas. Since I found out last week that my philosophy thesis paper was accepted at a conference in New Jersey, I thought it might be a good idea to spend this post talking about the benefits of going to undergraduate academic conferences.

For me, there is nothing more isolating and conducive to extended periods of self-loathing than writing philosophy papers. And I love studying philosophy. It’s just that I feel like I have a pretty good idea of some of the things I read in philosophy until I am forced to sit down put these ideas on paper.

One thing I learned at the conference in Arkansas last November was this is the case for almost everyone. However, it can be less painful if you think of writing a paper in order to convey your ideas to other students who probably have similar questions about the text.

This is the number one reason undergraduates should participate in conferences. They offer an opportunity to read papers in front of an interested and engaged audience of your peers who will see your paper as part of a conversation. This helps a lot because the feedback and questions after the reading indicate the parts of your paper that are unclear and need work.

I have been working on my philosophy senior thesis for about 6 months now and I was in a kind of rut before I went to the conference in Arkansas. I felt like I was just reiterating the same points over and over and over (for about 13 pages) but the questions from other conference participants sparked a renewed interest in my project.

Here are two upcoming undergraduate conferences worth looking into. They are really useful and also pretty fun. Submitting to a conference usually entails sending in an abstract of a paper you are working on and sometimes the paper itself.

• 4th Annual University of Chicago Undergraduate Philosophy Conference

• Undergraduate Conference at UNC Chapel Hill

Another option to do something similar is to present a paper at the THAT (philosophy) club colloquium. More information on this is forthcoming.

Amanda Holmes is a senior philosophy major from Atlanta, GA. She is vice president of the Philosophy Club. Consideration for the student bloggers is provided by Saint Xavier University.