Conference presentations

Well, it seems like it's all go at the moment, in a good way. Last month I responded to four calls for papers / abstracts, and I've had word that I've been accepted by two of them. I suppose lots of students get invited to speak at lots of conferences, but it's the first time I've been accepted, so quite exciting, and hopefully it's the first of many such experiences.

One event is an interdisciplinary graduate research event at UoN, and the other is a philosophy conference focusing on philosophy and current events, in the USA. I was thinking to myself that the UoN conference was probably not all that competitive so not that much of an achievement, but then, there are over 8000 postgraduate students here at Nottingham uni, so perhaps I ought to give myself more credit. There's no way for me to know how many applied to either event anyway, so maybe I should just feel pleased. I'm not posting the exact details on here (yet) in case it all falls apart! I'm quietly hopeful but sensibly cautious. I'm not sure how these things are funded: who pays for the flights, accommodation and suchlike for the conference in the USA where I'm due to speak? I hope it's not me.

I also presented at the PGR seminar this week (that's not an achievement though; any philosophy postgrad student can present; there are a group of about 8 of us who regularly attend, and so the audience is usually only about 10 people.) At the two upcoming events, I'll be presenting the same paper that I presented at the PGR seminar; it's one which I've been working on for my MA dissertation. It's about sexbots and some intrinsic wrongs associated with a particular type of sexbot. The presentation went well, I think. Lots of questions pressing me on the distinction between a robot which intentionally represents someone, and a robot which accidentally resembles someone.

If I am able to proceed with my PhD, I plan to be studying a whole lot more socio-political-ethical-legal issues surrounding sexbots and other (non-sexual) lifelike robots. Aside from the fact that it's fascinating and exciting and what I always hoped I could research when I saw things like I Robot and Star Trek, one great thing about my research is how current it is. Hopefully the philosophical investigations into robots won't just be a flash in the pan, because building my career on a mere trend could be problematic. But I am versatile and I have wide-ranging philosophical interests, so even if I am not researching robot ethics for the next 20 years, there will be no shortage of issues I want to write about.

I just hope that these conferences go well. Sometimes I feel as though other people are so much more cut out for this than I am. That seems unfounded though, given that teaching involves (in part) presenting to an audience, and given my extensive experience in that, then it's just implausible to suggest that I'm not cut out for this. Nonetheless, the feelings of inadequacy persist. Maybe they'll dissipate in time; if these upcoming presentations go well, it will help. I've had some academic / funding disappointments recently, so hopefully some better times are on their way. I'm not referring to it as luck, as I think very little of what happens in academia is down to luck, but that's another post for another day.