Of “Air Quotes” and Hand Gestures in Academia

This is a post on something that I have been mulling for some time and I have now had a chance to see it in action in a rather conference heavy couple of months.

The question is this: how do you decide to demonstrate you are quoting something when you give a conference paper?

Do you do that clunky verbal “quote unquote” thing?

Do you perform the air quotes with your hands so you do not disrupt your verbal flow or take away valuable talking minutes?

                I started my conference paper giving career with the quote unquote, but over time the unquote has disappeared to where I just say quote and then let my intonation or pause demonstrate when the quotation is done. It is not an ideal nor precise way but the quote unquote really did sound too clunky to me.

                I have never been an air quote person but I will say I went to a conference recently where there was one rather animated air quote using academic and this is where the nuggets of this post was born. Let’s take a moment to be honest shall we- academics are known to have physical ticks. You know what I am talking about, for example those lovely hand gestures we use to specify things as outlined here. 

I will be the first to say I am very much a fan of “the Dialectic” and I do use it more often than I should. As someone who studies tactility and education, I feel the hand gestures we use in the classroom and in delivering conference papers really say a lot about us as people and academics. I don’t use air quotes when I deliver papers because I am so very worried of coming off looking like that Chris Farley character from SNL. 

                So what do hand gestures say and how do we indicate precision in our citation of other scholars in verbal presentations? Tangentially those hand gestures often give context and supplemental information but what if our participants were blind or visually impaired? Do those gestures change reception of information in any substantial way? These are questions that we really need to parse as part of an ethical engagement with our research interests and in the interest of being accessible public scholars.

                I often joke that the best way to shut me up is by making me put my hands behind my back, for my Italianess and Frenchness make me very much a person who talks with her hands. But I strongly believe these gestures create a real tactile connection to what one is saying and the audience (whether it be students, colleagues, or strangers).  What I mean by tactile connection here is an embodied connection, where it is not simply words that are being delivered but that one’s body demonstrates the fact that the words are attached to ideas, and those ideas are things that one has become comfortable with due to reflection. That connection is important to opening lines of communication; it lets others know you are someone who is approachable or someone who is engaged with the ideas you are presenting.

                Last night on the first night of my summer term class one of my new students at the end of the evening said, “I am going to like this class because you are hyper.” No one has ever called me hyper before, I don’t think I am even capable of hyper…in the most socially understood sense anyway. When I questioned whether this was a bad thing she said “oh no no, it’s good, it means I won’t fall asleep and actually pay attention.” When I reflected on this I realized that what she was reacting to was my use of hand gestures the way that I negotiate the classroom environment, the pauses I give to ensure knowledge checks. These are things that one develops, they become part of your personal teaching style. They are also part of your presentation style. They indicate a level of care in pedagogy.

                Hands-in-pockets academic is saying something very different than dialectic-hand-gesture academic. The tactile relation to their work is different whether that conscientious realization is there or not.  The super-engaged-air-quote academic is also saying something very different. As an audience one reacts just as strongly to overly animated uses of hand gestures as the lack of any hand gestures at all. You have all been in that panel where the person delivering is giving their paper with their hands crossed across their chest reading from the paper with their head down. It sort of screams I don't really want to be here.

                But again what happens when you engage with concepts on a different sensory plain. What if you couldn’t see the speaker only hear them? Does that change how you relate? Think of podcasts for example and whether that same embodiment is there. I would argue that it is but that the point of engagement there shifts from hands to voice. Monotone speakers do not sound as engaged as those who have distinctive shifts in their speech pattern.

                Our voices are capable of just as distinctive a gesturing as our hands. Reflecting on how we embody our work and ideas, how we negotiate spaces, physical, aural, and oral is an ethical practice that needs to be considered but is often forgotten or seen as inconsequential. So the next time you are in the classroom or maybe at a conference look at how the person is presenting and question how that relates to the ideas being expressed, you will be surprised at the things that will you notice.