In June 2020, the Project on Middle East Political Science (POMEPS) launched a virtual research workshop for junior scholars to fill the void left by the cancelation of so many conferences and workshops due to the COVID-19 pandemic. For the 2021–2022 academic year, we expanded the virtual workshop dramatically to include 18 workshops dedicated to book manuscripts or journal-article manuscripts. Because of the format’s flexibility, efficiency, and advantages for diversity and inclusion, we plan to continue it even when travel becomes possible again. There are costs and risks, however, that require attention.
Overall, the move to virtual research workshops has been a resounding success. Since its launch, POMEPS has conducted 24 workshops, including 82 junior-scholar authors and 58 senior-scholar discussants. Each two-hour article workshop typically features three papers, each with one assigned discussant. The authors are asked to read the other two papers, whereas discussants may but are not required to do so. As the convener and moderator, I read all of the papers and provide a second set of comments to supplement the assigned discussant. Book workshops, which are more intense, typically last 90 minutes for one paper or three hours for two papers on related themes. Each book manuscript has two dedicated readers, in addition to myself and typically one other member of the selection committee. We conducted 11 virtual book workshops for the 2021–2022 academic year.
The buy-in from the Middle East political science (and broader Middle East studies) community has been phenomenal. Although we cannot offer honoraria, almost all invited discussants usually agree to participate. If they are unavailable, they often offer suggestions for alternatives—which is useful when the topics of the papers or books are outside of the organizers’ areas of expertise. A Zoom meeting will never be as much fun as an in-person seminar, but the relatively small size of the group keeps everyone engaged and allows for personal interactions. Authors do not present their manuscript, assuming that it has been read in advance, which maintains a high level of engagement because there are few long spans of only listening.
The virtual format allows us to more fully include scholars based in the Middle East and Europe, for whom it otherwise might be prohibitively expensive and pose complicated visa issues. We can offer invitations without regard to physical distance or national location. As a result, scholars from the Middle East and Europe who otherwise might have been excluded for logistical or cost reasons can participate at a high level: 40 of the 82 article authors and eight of the 11 book authors participated from outside of the United States. This also allows us to forego extensive advance planning, travel arrangements and logistics, and multiday disruptions. The selection process actively seeks applicants from outside of the usual elite institutional networks, on the assumption that junior scholars from top schools already have support from their institution and are networked into the scholarly community.
POMEPS has definite plans to continue these workshops even after the world heals; however, there are disadvantages to the format. In general, we have not heard the common complaint that online sessions are alienating, non-interactive, or unproductive. The small size and engagement-oriented organization has resulted in dynamic and productive sessions. Zoom burnout is real, however. We have found that a session lasting more than a few hours is difficult to sustain, even for the most dedicated of us. Time zones also have been an issue—we sometimes struggle to find workable times for participants who might be calling in from the West Coast of the United States and from Doha, Qatar. Moreover, there is no substitute for the informal time after in-person workshops sharing cocktails or dinner or an evening walk through a new city. We are concerned that the ease of virtual workshops will lead to a two-tier system in which non-U.S. based scholars benefit from feedback and professional development but remain excluded from the more informal social benefits of in-person events.
A more significant concern about the potential for a self-destructive dynamic is the tendency to overschedule because it is so easy and inexpensive to do so. The sheer volume of workshops enabled by the virtual format can be overwhelming, not only for the organizer who reads and comments on all of the papers almost weekly but also for the larger community. If we exhaust the pool of plausible readers and return multiple times to the same senior scholars, at some point, their enthusiasm for being a discussant inevitably will wane. Furthermore, it is possible that funders will observe the success of online models and become unwilling to fund the more expensive and unwieldy in-person events. That would be very disappointing because many new ideas and enduring partnerships are developed in those informal spaces of in-person conferences and workshops.
