Distance 2020: Online Conferences and Reimagining the International Academic Landscape

A new article by the organisers of 'Distance 2020' reflecting on their experience of running an international postgraduate conference during COVID-19 lockdown has recently been published in ECTI.

The conference organising team behind the highly successful international postgraduate conference, 'Distance 2020', a collaboration between the University of York's Centre for Eighteenth Century Studies and the ERCC which ran between 3-14 August 2020, have recently published an article in the online journal of The Eighteenth Century: Theory and Interpretation (ECTI) describing their experience of coordinating and running the conference while under challenging COVID-19 restrictions.

The postgraduate team – Kurt Baird, Sharon Choe, Holly Day, Rachel Feldberg (CES), and Francesca Kavanagh (University of Melbourne) – set up the conference to combat feelings of academic disengagement brought about by the Coronavirus lockdown and to provide postgraduates working in the field of eighteenth century studies with a virtual forum to share their work and establish connections with other emerging scholars. 153 delegates from 59 different institutions across 13 countries attended this ambitious two-week conference, which took place over multiple time zones and included a mixture of live events (plenary lectures, workshops and quizzes)and pre-recorded papers.

In their ECTI article detailing this experience, the organisers 'aim [...]to provide a roadmap for future conferences by highlighting both the benefits and the potential pitfalls of the decisions [they] took'. They also reflect on 'the intellectual and ethical implications' of shifting conferences online, arguing 'that it is not sufficient to consider moving our scholarly discussions to an online setting without also rethinking the support systems that underpin our scholarly engagement'. The article can be found online here: https://ecti.english.illinois.edu/cfp/.

The ERCC are proud to have been a part of this terrific conference. Well done Kurt, Sharon, Holly, Rachel and Francesca on organising such a successful and inspiring event!

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