The last day of the Tyndale House Conference in Cambridge was bittersweet. While excellent papers were presented all around, at every social hour including coffee breaks and meals there was a sense of pending farewells that kept us all conversing what that peculiar urgency found amongst new friends who know they must wait another year to be together again. I hope this final photo essay below conveys some sense of the scholarly camaraderie and Christian fellowship we all enjoyed.
Regarding next year, an announcement will be made soon concerning the details, as well as a call for papers. Do be sure to get the 2020 Tyndale House Conference on your calendar, and start crafting a proposal!
Finally, stay tuned to theLAB over the coming weeks, as we’ll be heading to Rome, Warsaw, Aberdeen, and Liverpool during the rest of this busy conference season. Lots of updates and more to come!
Dr. Tavis Bohlinger is Editor-in-Chief of the Logos Academic Blog and Creative Director at Reformation Heritage Books. He holds a PhD from Durham University and writes across multiple genres, including academia, poetry, and screenwriting. He lives in Grand Rapids with his wife and three children.
I noticed there’s not much diversity in the audience or presenters. Do you know if concrete steps are being taken to increase diversity for next year?
Thanks for your comment, Valérie. I’m not sure what sort of diversity you mean, so it would help if you could define that a bit further? Although the pictures are limited in what they can show, the Tyndale House conference was quite diverse in terms of nationalities, backgrounds, and more. Interestingly, there were actually a surprising number of Australians (they said as much, too), which is amazing considering how long their journey is to Cambridge! I was unable to capture images of the entire cohort, simply due to being one person, as well as the fact that I could not attend the first half of the conference. I was informed that there was a good mix of people presenting earlier in the week as well. What sort of concrete steps might you suggest, and what sort of diversity would you like to see?
Thanks for the clarifications. It is helpful. I realize it’s only a snapshot of the conference, and that my perception is necessarily skewed.
I noticed from the pictures (and of course, that is very superficial, since origins do not necessarily match appearances) that very few women and people of color presented papers. As far as concrete steps, I think that one could think along three lines:
– mentoring towards younger, female and people of color researchers by established scholars
– inviting directly and explicitly women and people of color to present, perhaps setting aside a couple of slots during the conferences
– choosing topics in which women and people of color are involved in greater numbers (feminist approaches, of course, but also postcolonial, decolonial perspectives, etc) making sure that these fields are considered as important and as scholarly as other more traditional fields.
We had a very diverse range of nationalities presenting. Participants were from Asia, continental Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the US as well as UK. In the OT group, one third were women.
I would really like to see more from Africa, and I think that depends on our establishing better links with other organisations. But being an Anglophone only conference will always limit the diversity.
I noticed there’s not much diversity in the audience or presenters. Do you know if concrete steps are being taken to increase diversity for next year?
Thanks for your comment, Valérie. I’m not sure what sort of diversity you mean, so it would help if you could define that a bit further? Although the pictures are limited in what they can show, the Tyndale House conference was quite diverse in terms of nationalities, backgrounds, and more. Interestingly, there were actually a surprising number of Australians (they said as much, too), which is amazing considering how long their journey is to Cambridge! I was unable to capture images of the entire cohort, simply due to being one person, as well as the fact that I could not attend the first half of the conference. I was informed that there was a good mix of people presenting earlier in the week as well. What sort of concrete steps might you suggest, and what sort of diversity would you like to see?
Thanks for the clarifications. It is helpful. I realize it’s only a snapshot of the conference, and that my perception is necessarily skewed.
I noticed from the pictures (and of course, that is very superficial, since origins do not necessarily match appearances) that very few women and people of color presented papers. As far as concrete steps, I think that one could think along three lines:
– mentoring towards younger, female and people of color researchers by established scholars
– inviting directly and explicitly women and people of color to present, perhaps setting aside a couple of slots during the conferences
– choosing topics in which women and people of color are involved in greater numbers (feminist approaches, of course, but also postcolonial, decolonial perspectives, etc) making sure that these fields are considered as important and as scholarly as other more traditional fields.
We had a very diverse range of nationalities presenting. Participants were from Asia, continental Europe, Australia and New Zealand, the US as well as UK. In the OT group, one third were women.
I would really like to see more from Africa, and I think that depends on our establishing better links with other organisations. But being an Anglophone only conference will always limit the diversity.