VANCOUVER—The 77th Congress of the Humanities and Social Sciences kicks off today on the beautiful UBC campus. Up to 10,000 academics from across the country, as well as many from the wider world, are expected to invade this lush garden, armed with 100 percent recycled-material tote bags and a strong sense of purpose. After more than a year of planning it’s finally coming together—the directional signs, the registration desk, the book fare stalls, and arguably the most important symbol of this scholarly happening: the beer tent. I’ve been here a little less than twenty-four hours and the whole experience reminds me of those moments in the Molson Stadium or the Air Canada Centre before the first face off. It’s minutes before the game and the stands are half empty, but by the time someone starts belting out the national anthem the whole place is miraculously blocked to the rafters.

The Canadian Federation for the Humanities and Social Sciences, or FedCan, as many have started to call it, has evolved the congress from a relatively modest operation to a full-blown logistical SWAT-team undertaking. It might not be a war room, but our media centre now commands a small army of writers and journalists, some well established, like a Michael Valpy, and some in training for a career in the writing racket. I have started to take calls from reporters whose bosses have detailed them off to cover Congress from their desks. Away from the growing bustle of this rich bazaar of ideas, they strain to find the story. What’s the point of all these people getting together for about a week, earnestly listening to each other’s reports about what project or proposal they are pursuing at the moment? You have to frame the event for them in a way that helps them get it. Beginning with the Congress theme always helps. “Thinking Beyond Borders/Global Ideas: Global Values� opens up the conversation. Everyone has an undergraduate experience story about being channeled through narrow corridors of learning, and everyone understands how emancipating it is to get beyond disciplinary walls. The dream of this Congress is the pleasure that comes from such leaps of thought. Sometimes the reporters start to sound envious.

Media reports of Congress used to exploit the inherent elitism in its old-fashioned title—the Learneds—and we were vulnerable to ridicule, especially on slow news days. What fun it is to mock academics as they wander from classroom to classroom, pedalling truths or some provisional, postmodern version of such. Never underestimate the appeal of a cheap shot, and there was a time when entire newspaper articles were devoted to some hapless scholar’s ill-chosen paper title, with its hints of transgression or silliness. But that was then, and today I am blogging for The Walrus, the thinker’s magazine of choice.

Most of these academics gathering here for what is week-long intellectual summer camp are social scientists and humanities scholars. Many of them are graduate students in search of role models, validation, and opportunities to show off their brain power, hipper fashion sense, and irresistible employability. By their name tags ye shall know them. But don’t be fooled by the seriousness of this whole exchange. As Leonard Cohen likes to say, the cheerfulness keeps breaking through. Let the games begin.

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Posted on Friday, May 30th, 2008 at 3:02 pm. Follow comments through the RSS 2.0 feed. Comment or trackback.