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Listening at the GSA: Lessons Learned

2016; German Studies Association; Volume: 39; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/gsr.2016.0099

2164-8646

Irene Kacandes,

Media Studies and Communication

Listening at the GSA:Lessons Learned Irene Kacandes (bio) Two days before beginning to draft these comments I gave a workshop at the Berlin Fellows program—jointly sponsored by the GSA and the Free University—on preparing for the North American job market. I’ve offered my thoughts on this subject to ABDs and postdocs many times before, and one piece of advice I always give is for younger scholars to learn how to be good oral presenters by consciously noting what they like and don’t like in speakers they listen to, especially at conferences where they can hear so many different speakers in a short amount of time. I urge them to note tone, pitch, volume of voice, eye contact with the audience, clarity of speech, delivery speed, facial expressions, use of hands. Are they reading a prepared text or speaking from notes? If they are reading, does it sound like they’re trying to communicate with the audience or like they’re talking to themselves? If they are delivering in a language not native to them, is their accent easy to understand or are they stumbling on many words? Note what you like and try to emulate it, I suggest to my workshoppers; note what irritates or distracts you and try to avoid it. Some of that emulation or avoidance will take extensive practice. Few of us are naturally gifted public speakers, but many of us can become good ones. I can’t account for my own obsession with public speaking and communication more generally, but some of the readers of this essay will know that I study such things. One of the places I’ve studied communication is at GSA conferences. I have benefitted enormously from attending the GSA. It suited me from the start that so many disciplines were represented, and I quite explicitly sought out talks by scholars in disciplines not my own: political science, anthropology, musicology, and history especially. I can think of many special moments seared into my consciousness, like squeezing into the packed (and very hot) room where Danny Goldhagen and Chris Browning were facing off after the publication of Hitler’s Willing Executioners, or the equally packed room where Jeff Herf, Atina Grossman, and many others were querying Mark Anderson on just what he meant about German studies becoming too exclusively Jewish studies. I also remember how thrilling it was to meet and actually consult with some of my German studies “heroes” like Geoff Eley, Sara Lennox, and Jeff Peck. I remember feeling quite timid and deeply honored by having actual conversations [End Page 661] with Henry Friedlander, Sybil Halpern Milton, Frank Trommler, Gerhard Weinberg, and Gerhard Weiss. Still, I think if I had to single out one set of lessons learned at the GSA, it would be about public speaking and that “speaking” conducted in the various roles that our conference assigns: as moderator, presenter, commentator, and audience member. I was particularly inspired by commentators I heard in my first GSA conferences, because that activity was not formalized at other conferences I went to in my early career, like the Modern Language Association, the Society for the Study of Narrative Literature, or even the Modern Greek Studies Association (which, like the GSA, boasts quite broad disciplinary participation). It’s interesting but not surprising to me that all the commentators I remember from those early years were women historians. Even if space won’t permit me to mention everyone I’d like to, I hope to mention enough names for us all to be reminded of the huge generational contribution to the GSA made by historians (alphabetically): Doris Bergen, Rebecca Boehling, Kathleen Canning, Atina Grossmann, Elizabeth Heineman, Dagmar Herzog, Marion Kaplan, Mary Nolan. Naturally, each of these individuals has her own set of presentational and intellectual strengths, and I count myself as extremely fortunate for having had the chance since those early years to meet and get to know these fine scholars. However, I will try to stick below to my first general impressions. I remember a level of energy and engagement that struck me at the time—and still does—as both respectful and generous. While I generally try...