To commemorate 2021, we on the YASA Executive Board–Leah, Emily C, Rebekah, Jennie, and Emily B–reflected on our experiences hosting our first biennial conference in November 2020.
- How would you describe the experience of #YASA2020?
Leah Phillips: For me, the conference was a kind of respite from the chaos of the rest of the world, even though it was its own kind of delightful chaos. In fact, my underlining word for #YASA2020 would be camaraderie. I love how despite being in different time zones, on different continents, and in different countries, we were all together in the virtual space of the conference.
Rebekah Fitzsimmons: The whole conference was such a delight! Given how isolating this year has been, teaching from home and all of my other conferences cancelled, I was so excited to have the opportunity to interact with so many bright, brilliant scholars and hear their work. The conference itself was such a joy to participate in; I loved being able to watch the talks on my own time, then dive right into the conversations in each panel – the thoughtful questions and insights from the panelists and the audience members was fantastic.
Emily Booth: Frantically fantastic. I loved every second, but needed some intense hibernation when it was done to recover–not that that’s really possible, when your job is to be on Twitter!
Jennie Gouck: It was a bit of whirlwind, really! I felt like the whole week just flew by and time became meaningless (or rather, even more meaningless than it’s felt this year anyway!). I was blown away by the quality and diversity of panels we were able to host across the conference.
Emily Corbett: #YASA2020 was a delightful whirlwind. That’s the best way for me to describe it. As a culmination of so many people’s hard work for so many months, it was rewarding, fascinating, nerve-inducing, stressful, exhilarating, and exhausting all at the same time, and I can’t wait to do it all again and more for #YASA2022. - Did the online environment influence the conference experience for you? How so?
Rebekah Fitzsimmons: Well, I would never attend a panel in my PJs in real life but I will confess, given the time differences, there were a few 4am panels that I attended in jammies and fuzzy slippers with the camera off and the coffee pot on! I do think, however, that the way the panels were set up allowed for a really wonderful exchange of ideas, especially between panelists, that sometimes gets skipped over at in-person conferences. The combination of the asynchronous and synchronous content really allowed for everyone to dig in and find some wonderful synergies between presentations.
Jennie Gouck: It did in the sense that, as organisers, we were keenly aware of how many things could go wrong. Thankfully our President, Leah, Vice-President, Emily, and Conference Assistant, Jamie, came up with lots of organisational frameworks and contingency plans to help things run as smoothly as possible! While I missed the kind of serendipitous meetings that can happen at an IRL conference, I loved that the online component meant we could create what I fondly called “YASA Netflix”, meaning that we could all catch up on panels we missed and browse through pre-recorded presentations at our leisure. That element also allowed us to cater to multiple time zones, which was fantastic.
Emily Corbett: #YASA2020 was always designed to be an online conference, even before Covid came along and made that decision all the more necessary, and so the online environment was a really interesting part of the experience from my perspective as co-organiser. I loved that we were free to experiment with different systems, formats, and forms of engagement, without being constrained by the conventions of an academic conference. And not having to chase any caterers to deliver the coffee on time was a huge bonus!
Leah Phillips: I think the online environment opened up possibilities that an in-person conference just can’t replicate, even if the virtual conference couldn’t replicate certain in-person experiences. I’m quite a fan of the possibilities: we could build in flexibility, we could keep costs down (there is more we could’ve done with an actual budget!), we could include people from all over the world. Don’t tell anyone, but I have plans for a gloriously hybrid conference in the future…
Emily Booth: Definitely. I felt like the live events were streamlined because audience questions-that-are-actually-comments couldn’t throw schedules off! Of course, I missed the opportunities we usually have to mingle, but I also think we had enough options that people could tune in if they wanted to. - What is the significance of YA Studies Around The World to the field of YA studies, and academia more broadly?
Emily Booth: Having the conference online and open to everyone rather than just academics who can afford to travel was something I loved. I’m really passionate about breaking down barriers to knowledge, and I feel we made a huge contribution to doing that. I think having a massive conference about YA also demonstrates that we’re not just an extension of children’s literature studies–we are our own field with so much to offer!
Rebekah Fitzsimmons: One of my favorite things about YASA is its focus on international literature – selfishly, working with the YASA membership has made my own scholarship more expansive and broadened my exposure to literature I might not have sought out on my own. For the field as a whole, the cross-cultural and international perspectives helps expand and establish a lot of the work being done in YA, especially across different theoretical lenses, making the work a lot more intersectional, inclusive, and engaged with the full scope of YA.
Leah Phillips: I think the conference is part of a wider shift that is happening in academia toward more inclusivity. Admittedly, I’m looking at things from quite a privileged position, so there is some naivety in my optimism. However, I do see younger, marginalised, often women scholars fighting tirelessly to bring about change. YASA2020 was, I hope, a part of that work. It certainly proved: we can work with colleagues regardless of location. We can find ways to make participation easier for colleagues with disabilities, who have caring responsibilities, or financial limitations, and that we can have fun while doing so.
Jennie Gouck: YASA is an exciting new development for the field of YA; while YA studies is often included under the umbrella of ‘Children’s Literature studies’, the two aren’t the same and it’s nice to have an international home for YA studies, specifically. I think YA Studies Around the World really demonstrated just how international our community is, and that’s something I’d love to grow as the Association moves forward. The field is still, really, in its infancy, and this conference, in all its interdisciplinarity and internationality, felt like an important step towards YA studies’…toddlerhood?!
Emily Corbett: We tried to create a conference space that was accessible and welcoming to all who wanted to participate by overcoming some of the more practical barriers that can limit people’s options for engaging with academic conferences. #YASA2020 opened up what a conference can look like by having all of its 42 hours of content recorded and available throughout November, showing that busy schedules and other commitments don’t have to mean that you miss out. It is an ethos that I’d like to see in more conferences in the future. - What were your conference highlights?
Jennie Gouck: I particularly enjoyed the Fashion, Fairytales, and Femininity panel as that intersected with a lot of my own research. Another personal highlight was hosting Paper Lanterns‘ panel. I’m a feature writer for the journal (promise I’m not biased!), and I love what the fabulous women over there are trying to do for both YA as a field/area and for actual Young Adults so it was a real pleasure to get to showcase their wonderful work. Finally, hosting the YA Quiz with Emily Corbett was great. It was so lovely to meet some of our attendees and have a bit of fun together. I hope they enjoyed it as much as we did!
Emily Booth: I’m biased, but I loved the panel I was on, The Young Adults. You’ve Messed With The Wrong Generation was another panel I adored, and working my way through individual paper recordings in November was a great way to keep the excitement going at a less intensive pace.
Rebekah Fitzsimmons: Any and all opportunities to work with the rest of the YASA board is a highlight for me – these are such smart, hardworking women who really carefully and thoughtfully approached designing this conference. From designing a really entertaining pub quiz to experimenting with Gather to help build community in the online space, Leah, Emily, Emily, and Jennie really went above and beyond to try to create an ideal experience for our first conference. It was such a joy to work with people who could think through problems, internalize feedback, laugh at the small mistakes, and immediately turn around and ask “how can we do better for the next panel.” Hopefully the joy and enthusiasm we all had for the project shone through in the panels and events!
Emily Corbett: My number one conference highlight was seeing so many people – academics, educators, librarians, industry professionals – come together to celebrate YA and YA Studies, and to showcase all that they have to offer. Some panels aligned more with my own research interests than others, but every single event was a shining example of the phenomenal work that is happening now. #YASA2020 gave me a real sense of how much YA matters all around the world and that has made a huge difference in my everyday attitude to my own work that I am unbelievably grateful for.
Leah Phillips: In a seriously fangirl sort of way, Professor Ebony Elizabeth Thomas referring it as “a historic conference” on Twitter. Discovering in The Future of YA Social that several of us were sipping coffee mug wine during the previous panel (it was very late for those of us in CST and EST time zones!). The YA in Translation panel was wild – in the best possible way – and was clearly a much needed discussion. Finally, a few of my Composition 1 students – who had no vested interest in the conference – came along to a few sessions… and that, that anyone (with an internet connection) could and did participate is probably my biggest highlight.
And that’s just some of our thoughts on the wild and wonderful experience of hosting YASA2020! If you enjoyed the conference, we’d love you to consider donating to YASA so we can recoup the costs required for running it (e.g. Zoom upgrades).
We’re already hard at work planning our future activities! If you’d like to be a part of them, please join YASA. Membership is currently free.
Thanks for reading!
