Michael Sayeau, now at University College London, returned from last week's conference entitled "On the Idea of Communism" in somewhat low spirits regarding the state of academic conferencing.

Our papers, we tell ourselves, are incisive critiques of the status quo. But how intimidated is the status quo by a rigorous Marxist analysis of Philip Larkin's "Whitsun Weddings" anyway? It doesn't help that Power, despite our repeated invitations, rarely shows up at events like "Rethinking Modernities" to suffer our blistering remarks.