In this special mega edition of Shoptalk, guess which performative utterance was said at which conference.
Mary Zaborskis
Mary Zaborskis is an assistant professor of American studies and gender studies at Penn State Harrisburg. She works at the intersections of queer, critical-race, and childhood studies in 20th-century and contemporary American literature and culture. Her work has appeared in GLQ, WSQ, and Signs. She edits the Shoptalk and Quizzical series at Public Books. 
Quizzical: Which Academic Organization Are You?
If your life was a conference, what would be its theme?
Quizzical: Which Academic Press Are You?
We don’t judge books by their covers, but we do sort people based on which academic presses match their personality types.
Shoptalk: Overheard at the Virtual Conference
In this parodic installment of Shoptalk, we salute the year of conferences that have tried to be.
Quizzical: What Academic Jobs Wiki Updater Are You?
The academic job market reflects some of the most infuriating, mind-numbing ...
Shoptalk: Overheard at MLA 2020
This year’s Modern Language Association Annual Convention took place January 9–12 in Seattle, Washington. Participants were far from sleepless as they traversed ...
Quizzical: What Essential Part of an Academic Conference Are You?
Here at Public Books, we embrace the good, the bad, and the ugly of an ...
Shoptalk: Overheard at ASA 2019
This year’s American Studies Association annual meeting took place November 7–10 in Honolulu, Hawai’i. ASA President, Scott Kurashige, transformed this year’s ...
Shoptalk: Overheard at ASAP 2019
This year the Association for the Study of the Arts of the Present (ASAP) convention was held at the University of Maryland, College Park. The hotel bar may have ...
Quizzical: Which Psychoanalytic Literary Term Are You?
Some literary theorists fawn over Freud, others love Lacan, while others still ...
QUIZZICAL: Can You Match the Lock of Hair with Its Author?
Both the Harry Ransom Center at the University of Texas at Austin and the ...
QUIZZICAL: Which Academic Jargon Term Are You?
You may deploy academic jargon in your quotidian routines, but let’s take your praxis a step further. Which literary theoretical term do you embody?
QUIZZICAL: Famous Writers, and Their Pets!
Behind many celebrated writers is a canine, feline, reptilian, or avian pal. Do you know the domestic creatures that have kept these novelists, playwrights, poets ...
Shoptalk: Overheard at ACLA 2019
This year’s annual meeting of the American Comparative Literature Association gathered at Georgetown University. Participants met in small ...
Dancing Queer Children
Fans of Dance Moms and of RuPaul’s Drag Race alike rejoiced when Netflix debuted Dancing Queen this past fall. As Abby Lee Miller—the Dance Moms teacher and queen of my heart—frequently and ...
Shoptalk: Overheard at MLA 2019
This year’s MLA convention in Chicago, Illinois, was a suspiciously pleasant affair: clear weather, somewhat navigable conference spaces, and proximity to ...
Shoptalk: Overheard at ASA and NWSA 2018
This year Americanists, feminists, feminist Americanists, and everyone between and beyond gathered in downtown Atlanta for the annual meetings of both the ...
Shoptalk: Overheard at C19
This year, members of the Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the organization’s fifth biennial ...
Shoptalk: Overheard at MLA 2018
Literary critics that managed the trek to this year’s Modern Language Association conference descended into a professional circle of hell: the convention was held in ...
Shoptalk: Overheard at ASA
This year’s American Studies Association conference coincided with Chicago’s first snowfall of the season. Its theme was “Pedagogies of Dissent,” and conversations that circulated in the conference ...