Academic Conferences: When Small is Beautiful

Abstract

How can we create smaller academic events that promote genuine dialogue and intellectual exchange, while perhaps moving at a slower pace? Large, impersonal academic conferences may be a necessary element toward building a career, but for many they are far from pleasant and at some point deliver more burden than benefit. This essay makes a case for organizing and hosting more personal events on a smaller, more manageable scale.

This essay grew out of the author's hosting of, and participation in, a small conference on therapeutic jurisprudence at Suffolk University Law School in 2014.

Keywords: legal education, legal scholarship, therapeutic jurisprudence, law and psychology, higher education, academic conferences