Joy Ahn
October 24th was the day of my first guest lecture, which I consider the most difficult part of my internship. Though I had experience with public speaking, it was exclusively for presentations where I dictated the discussion. Faced with the entirely different task of fostering discussion rather than dominating it, I found myself having to go against my instincts and reevaluate how I presented myself and my information. For example, I had to force myself to simplify my preparation—such as organizing my points into a few general topics, avoiding the presumptive use of secondary text and quotations, forgoing a visual accompaniment—and generally throw away my preliminary rituals for public presentation. On the advice of a professor, I had to stomach the fact that the less structure I imposed, the more likely it was that students would contribute. My aim was to let my students dictate the discussion and the topics we would talk about, and my contributions would be relegated to guiding and expanding on their points. It was extremely nerve-racking because so much of it would be dependent on my ability to improvise, which was my weakness in public settings.
Despite my anxieties, however, the lecture went better than I could have ever hoped for, and it was all due to my students. They were so engaged, and their contributions were so insightful and intelligent. My success was entirely due to their help. There were many times where they would make my prepared points for me, expanding discussion to places that I originally thought we would be unable to get to. I often found myself having to keep up with them, rather than the other way around. We founded our discussion on the course focus of modernism and touched upon branching topics of rightwing fearmongering, subjective storytelling, and the cultural role of media that simultaneously comforts and unnerves us.
If I ever get the opportunity to host another guest lecture, I would try to be even less structured; I think the least animated parts of our discussion were times I was bringing up foundational points to guide students.
