This year, members of the Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists gathered in Albuquerque, New Mexico, for the organization’s fifth biennial meeting. East and West Coast participants reflected on the conference’s theme, “Climate,” in a deeply material way, as nor’easters, snow, and mudslides left many delayed and stranded. Those who did make it enjoyed a festive atmosphere—reflected in conference room names like “Enchantment” and “Fiesta”—as they shared their work at 5,300 feet above sea level.
1. “Of course I know him. We lived together in the woods for a month.”
2. “My Airbnb is quite gothic.”
3. Person 1: “They’re at a place called Sister Bar.”
Person 2: “Spinster Bar?”
4. Person 1: “Let’s have a kiki.”
Person 2: “An Albukiki!”
5. “You’re a witty man. Dare I say … a Whitman.”
6. “I was looking for my hotel and ended up at the meth lab house from Breaking Bad.”
7. Person 1: “I feel like you know everyone here.”
Person 2: “Yeah, but I don’t want to know most of them.”
8. Person 1: “Will you be at the Commons Table?”
Person 2: “I like my tables less common.”
9. “The paper was more interesting than the abstract.”
10. “Blame it on the a-a-a-a-a-altitude.”
11. “I thought we all hated Emily Dickinson.”
12. “Apparently some people are at the bar playing ‘Fuck, Kill, Marry’ with 19th-century authors, should we go?”
13. “Please don’t tell anyone, but I really don’t care about Puritans.”
14. “Someone just mansplained to me what a conference is.”
Many thanks to Don James McLaughlin, Julia Dauer, Clare Mullaney, and Laura Soderberg for their overhearing assistance! 
