nuestros amigos de los Ivy

the mellon conference was friday afternoon and saturday evening. i wasn't presenting, just there to listen. all graduate students, presenting everything from dissertation proposals regarding the geography of the americas from wwii onward to almost final versions of chapters about asian slaves in 17th century mexico and land reparations in post violencia colombia. some of it was fascinating, some of it was dull as all hell.

at the talks themselves, commentary from the visiting professors was generally the most entertaining part. always prefaced with very good, or on intriguing project, or so much potential, many of the comments hit at the root of larger issues, sticking points in definition of terms, and especially the boundaries of projects, either temporally or spatially. mauricio was often the cruelest, but that's just him and he softened it with joking asides, but overall the professors actually seemed interested and invested in student projects. perhaps they're just good at faking. i'd like to think not.

the older students all seemed to know each other, and while i did talk to some people from both schools, i mostly stuck with my chicago folks. i contributed minimally, but because there was so little time for questions/comments after each presentation, i didn't feel like pushing it. one of my ta's from the big h was there and i talked with him, as well as the two other guys i'd had classes with, but the yalies were rather asocial in general (as we'd been warned) and we had plenty of fun ourselves.

dinner on friday night was fabulous. good food, good wine, and incredibly entertaining company. dain and mauricio sang duets for quite a while - emilio refused to join. some of the students got rather tipsy. dain made numerous ridiculous and somewhat inappropriate comments about pot, getting hit on in bars, and just wanting to have one disco hit, touring for a year, and then going back to teaching. and just watching katz, meyer, and womack in their booth, with their glasses of scotch/wine/whiskey whatever, three of the grandfathers of mexican history - amazing. of course, once most of the profs had headed home, womack was surrounded by admiring young women (there was actually a pretty even split, maybe even favoring women amongst the students) before wandering down michigan ave with his glass in his hand on our way to a bar.

all in all, it makes me tremendously sad that this is probably my only time attending as the funding has run out. perhaps they will manage to find new funding somewhere. i sincerely hope so.