All of the materials for the 4th Annual UNC Charlotte Philosophy Conference have been released. This will be my first presentation at an academic conference. It is somewhat exciting to see my name and my paper title appear in the schedule for the event. I am also very nervous and unsure of myself. It helps that I know that I will be presenting in front of faculty and students that I am at least somewhat familiar with. I have been wrestling with myself over how to make the topic of my paper to an audience of philosophers, and I’m still not convinced that I have come up with the right answer, but they did select me, so there must be something relevant to them.

I am generally not comfortable speaking in public, and especially not on topics that are involved in my paper, but I have been allowing myself to be more expressive in classes recently, so I’m hoping that will result in me managing to figure out how to present my topic in an approachable way.  I think my biggest fear is that I will finish my presentation in the time allocated (20-30 minutes) and then no one will have any questions and I will be standing there feeling like I have failed in presenting my paper in an accessible way.