SEM Day 3: Papers, Parties, Prostitution

OK, I just threw in the last one for alliteration's sake, but I suppose no conference review is complete without some metaphor involving comparisons between the sex trade and the Obscene Paper-making Machine that is academic conference culture. "Blah blah sell your soul blah blah performative courtship rituals blah blah never mind that we're equating the politics and risks of sex work to a self-congratulatory circle-jerk between privileged academics."

I suppose I should pause here and say that I do like SEM (otherwise I wouldn't be a member) and I get an immeasurable amount of inspiration and instruction out of its conferences. If it sometimes tends toward a careerist clusterfuck, it is no more so than any other academic conference I've attended; Ethno/Anthro jobs are scarce, after all.

So, Saturday itself was a fun but densely-packed day. I went to a series of morning sessions, then a big block of papers on "DJ cultures" (I have my issues with that term), took a short lunch at Ruffage again, skipped a bunch of medium-interest papers for a short and intense visit to the beach, then off to the official banquet and the Uchicago/Upenn party afterwards. A few of us made it to the sushi place again for late-night 50% sushi, but the 15-odd people who followed us an hour later missed last call, so we just sat around and drank. The bar seemed to be determined to close early, and they were already turning up the lights by 1am. What's up with that? From there, a few of us who had Sunday morning sessions headed off to bed (with some cocktails, of course), while another part of the group headed off to find a bar that was open (or a liquor store, failing that).

UPDATE: pics of Hawaii here.