on the different possible lecture formats

All right, I can already feel that I’m still on London time and won’t be able to sleep for a couple of hours. And since I don’t feel like unpacking yet, here’s another quick take on the different possible ways of doing and preparing for lectures.

The two general possibilities are: (a) having a prepared text, and (b) not having a prepared text. There are also some intermediate possibilities, such as a PowerPoint show.

The best prepared-text lecturer I’ve seen is Lingis. I don’t think he ever lectures without reading from a prepared text. It works well in his case because his prose style is so excellent, and his way of reading his work so wonderfully spooky, that
you can’t help paying attention even when he isn’t wearing some sort of freaky costume.

The best ad lib speaker I’ve seen is surely Zizek. I’d gladly buy an expensive ticket to see Zizek live again. (So far I’ve seen him three times: in Chicago, Rotterdam, and London. Two of those were masterpieces, and the other was more than good enough, even though it was obviously an off-day for him.)

The best power-point lecturer I’ve seen is probably Latour. I’ve done it myself for a handful of class lectures, and am warming to it as a medium, but have still never tried it for an invited or conference appearance. (Oh wait, that’s incorrect. My first talk at the LSE, in November 2007, was a PowerPoint talk. Peter Erdélyi talked me into it. In his field, PowerPoints are the norm, after all.)

Often, it is made pretty clear by the person inviting you which of these methods is preferred. For instance, prior to Zagreb I was told a prepared text would be a good idea, since there would be more informal roundtable discussions afterward.

On other occasions, such as Speculative Realism II in Bristol, I planned to use that talk as my contribution to the forthcoming anthology The Speculative Turn, so I figured “I may as well write it now, and read it in that form in Bristol.”

And for the second Paris lecture in January, there was no way I was going to ad lib a talk in French, because I surely can’t do that quite yet, and wanted a prepared text to avoid public disaster.

As mentioned in the previous post, you’ll occasionally meet people who have strong moralistic objections to prepared texts. Tell them you’re working on a conference paper, and you’ll hear a “Harrumph!” and see them put their hands on their hips, followed by some triumphalistic line such as “In my field, we never use prepared texts!”

For a number of years, I took that point to heart, and was trying to eliminate prepared texts altogether from my lecturing arsenal. Since it’s the sort of thing one really needs in early career, when there is not yet a long track record of lecturing successes, I think I started thinking of the prepared text as training wheels after hearing the method criticized, and decided I’d gradually remove the training wheels from the bicycle.

What happened, however, is that a number of people started saying: “We miss your prepared talks. They’re not boring at all, so why don’t you do some again some time?”

And that’s the only real reason to be opposed to prepared lectures in principle– often they are quite boring. People wrongly use the same dry style they would use for a journal article, even use phrases that no one ever uses outside an article (such as “to wit,” or even worse, “in fine”, a phrase that ought to be banned from the language as ridiculous academic affectation), and make no physical connection with the audience as they stare down at their paper and read it in a monotone.

Yes, that is just awful, and should never be done. Perhaps seeing Lingis in action enough times gave me an unconscious idea of how to read a prepared text in a way that doesn’t put people to sleep.

All right, as for the difference in getting ready for these two kinds of lectures, the previous post said most of what needs to be said on the topic. Prepared lectures need to be prepared well in advance, so as to avoid procrastination and last-minute panic.

By contrast, there are notecards. (I don’t like going without the cards, because otherwise I fear rambling and not having enough structure or sequence in the talk.) I’ve found that to give a relatively unprepared talk like this, it’s best to feed off the energy of the situation. That’s why it’s good to reach the lecture site, see the room if possible so you can imagine what it will actually be like to speak there, perhaps meet some of the organizers for dinner or drinks, hear about their interests and expectations and ask them what sorts of people will be in the audience, and so forth. Then, like a musician getting worked up before a concert, you can say you want the afternoon to yourself, or whatever, and then prepare the cards. I usually prepare about 30-50 cards, and can always expand on the points or cut out some cards while speaking, depending on how much time is left and how the audience is reacting. For instance, at Goodenough College I simply didn’t refer to the final three cards, since we ran out of time and the last three cards added another complicated twist on the argument that couldn’t have been handled without another 10-15 minutes available, which we no longer had. In fact, I often set up the cards in such a way that there are three places that could serve as conclusions if necessary, depending on how time is flowing.

I never would have dared trying this in my youth. Now that I’ve given 70 or 80 of these talks, with only one of them a clear failure (way back in 1996), the fear of catastrophe is more or less gone.

Even now, I probably wouldn’t quite dare the notecards method for a really important lecture, such as a keynote address. In that sort of situation, you really want to be sure that you’re giving them their money’s worth, and a good prepared text guarantees that this will be the case.

A final note on McLuhanite terminology… In the previous post I referred to the prepared-text lecture as a cold medium. This will sound flatly wrong to any orthodox McLuhanite (assuming that any still exist). After all, prose is supposed to be a classic hot (high-information) medium for McLuhan, since every word is exactly determined in advance.

True, I say, but only if one is reading it in printed form. The same holds for notecards, which would obviously be a cold medium (low-information) if read in printed form.

It’s an interesting paradox that didn’t occur to me until after putting up the last post… A low-information text (notecards) requires a “hot” presentation, or charismatic involvement with the audience. But a high-information text (a prepared lecture) allows for a more hypnotic involvement with the audience. They can drift in and out of attention, musing on this or that part of what you’ve said, then later returning to listening to what you are saying.

I read an interesting blog post during the 2008 election campaign claiming that Obama’s problems in Appalachia were not entirely of racist origin. The claim was that Obama is a cold/cool type of speaker (in McLuhan’s sense) whereas in Appalachia the preference is supposedly for fiery, “hot” politicians who screams and raves in the manner of many televangelists (or to a lesser extent, even Joe Biden). I doubt this is enough to push racism entirely out of the picture, but it’s an interesting thought. And it gives an interesting McLuhanite angle on Obama’s choice of a running mate. Their styles really are pretty contrasting.