LK Goes to Washington, Thursday

I'm in our nation's capitol attending the AHA, the largest professional historians conference. I rolled out of bed at 5:45 and left in sweats 15 minutes later to catch a flight... So I arrived to the conference hotel a pretty big mess. I always feel like a little bit a poser at these things, so it was important to make an entrance...

This is by far the biggest conference I've attended. I received the program in the mail a week ago, and it's roughly the size of a phone book. The intellectual exchange is crazy. And it's a funny subculture--a bunch of academics so completed interested in little tiny pieces of history (like myself). On the elevator I told my friend that almost an hour had passed since I heard the name Foucault. Everyone laughed. The father of postmodernism must be mentioned as much as possible! One woman suggested we make a drinking game out of it, take a shot every time someone says Foucault. We abandoned the idea because we would get alcohol poisoning.

I attended a session on African Americans in asylums (uplifting, I know) and finished the evening with dinner at an organic Indian restaurant. I shared a two-hour meal at Taste of India (not to be confused with Little India, right next door) with two colleagues I never see, even though we live in the same city. We had this great conversation deconstructing the Christian faith. It was 27 degrees when we walked home from our after dinner coffee shop... way too cold for my tastes!