“Colloquium” is one of those words that’s supposed to mean something real but most often doesn’t. (Another word of this type, you’ll notice, is “yes”.)
A “colloquium” is a talk that an expert gives to interest non-experts. On a scientific topic, a true “colloquium” could fall anywhere in between an article in Discover magazine (pretty pictures plus arm-waving) and one from Scientific American (a fairly dense critique).
Most people who give colloquia fail on one of two measures. Type one keeps forgetting what “non-expert” means. Type two doesn’t grasp the meaning of “to interest.”
If you find yourself at a type-two colloquium, I recommend thinking up new ways to rearrange all the furniture in your house. If you find yourself at a type-one colloquium, you can still have quite a good time by approaching it as you would a piece of classical music.
First, expect the speaker to have his most clear, most memorable, most understandable material at the beginning. Classical composers often start movements with a “theme” that gets varied later on, and if you aren’t paying attention most of the rest will be lost on you.
Second, even if you get confused somewhere after the theme, all is not lost. The “composer” in front of you, if she’s any good, has some “cadence material” planned for the end of the piece. There is a reason this topic was chosen, a reason for the sequence being followed, and when the end arrives there will be something “best” that’s been saved Uh oh, having said that, I haven’t raised up your expectation that I saved up some big POW! BIFF! BAM! for the end of this post. I’m more the “bing” type anyway….
4 responses so far ↓
1 Mysterious Stranger // May 31, 2003 at 8:31 am
Hello, Betsy Devine==
How the hell are ya? This is Rick Abrams, from the olden days. The associative chain was Mimi Fahnestock (in the news)–>Joan Fahnestock–>YOU, in Google everywhere, instantly recognizable (’cause nobody but a blogger / Stirs her coffee with her thumb).
I see that you married the world’s foremost theoretical physicist, or sump’n, and have two brilliant daughters. I’m teaching Shakespeare at the Univ of Southern Maine in Portland, have been here for 20+ years, after Austin, and am still far from thinking New Englandly. I write, collect art, garden and serve a two- year-old Maltese named Rupert who’s living proof of the law of Survival of the Cutest. I also recently landed in jail for protesting the war (I see you’re a Dean supporter), where I tried to get my fellow arrestees to give folk songs a rest and wail to Jailhouse Rock. Anyway, here’s a hello from acrosss the years, and may the sun keep shining on you.
Rick
2 Frank Paynter // May 31, 2003 at 3:55 pm
Hello from across the hours! I’ve read David Weinberger’s bloggery on today’s (Saturday) DGI papers and I wish I had been able to stay.
Did this posting regarding colloquia have anything to do with the Compton Lecture? It was definitely type 3: witty and a stretch for the public, and engaging, and it maintained a level of dry humor throughout, including tongue-in-cheek references to the red, white, and blue quark colors.
I’m a lucky guy to have been there!
3 Betsy Devine // May 31, 2003 at 7:06 pm
Gosh–hello Rick, hello Frank! Just a one-hour timezone change flying back from Chicago today, but I seem to have fallen into some serious time warp. I remember Rick as a romantic figure (and a poet yet) back when I was in high school. I remember Frank, or course, as a glamorous fellow blogger whose online image (high-tech crane in the sunset) just got replaced with actual mental pix of fun time in Chicago hanging out with him and Beth. How coherent is this? Does anyone read my comments? If you two guys do, warm best wishes across the time-space discontinuum.
4 Frank Paynter // Jun 2, 2003 at 5:14 am
Comments are part of the fabric. One of course wishes one could edit them when one mis<s>speaks</s> writes, mislabels a physics lecture, and whatnot. Regardless, I am practicing a new skill: parallel expression (as distinct from serial), open my mouth and all the ideas come out in parallel for sorting at the receiver’s end. I haven’t figured out how to apply this to the keyboard, but maybe that’s just because I type slow.