The papers this morning were extremely good. I was particularly impressed by Finnish scholar Jenni Tyynelä who compared the philosophy of multiple worlds used by Diana with the philosophical doctrines of David Lewis. We ended up pretty certain that Diana had read Lewis, and quite a bit about quantum mechanics as well.

Caroline Webb’s paper got me thinking a lot more seriously about the Chrestomanci books, and about how what Diana says about identity might be compared with Judith Butler. I may write something about this eventually.

Sadly today also saw the one poor paper I’ve attended all weekend. Here’s a hint for you, people: if you are giving a paper at an academic conference, don’t spend most of your time reading from your own fanfic. Just don’t.

The feedback on the conference was uniformly positive, with many people commenting that the quality of the papers was extremely high. Aside from the general suckage of the university’s internet service, nothing went wrong. The rain even managed to fall only during panel sessions. It was as close to flawless as such an event can be. Lots of people were asking for another one, but Charlie and Farah are wisely suggesting we wait until 2011, because the community of DWJ scholars isn’t really big enough to support an annual event.

(It is worth noting here that out of around 70 attendees we had people from 14 different countries. That’s great, but international travel is expensive.)

Hey, maybe by 2011 I will have read enough of Diana’s books to be able to give a paper myself.

I’m planning to do a proper con report as well. However, I need to get turned around and headed off for Finncon on Tuesday. There’s also a Worldcon looming. How do people ever have the time to get bored?