American scholarly organisations have evolved highly institutionalised forms of ritual, the peak being the annual meeting, when scholars from all parts of the country converge on an antiquated and inconvenient hotel in one of the larger cities for a three-day conference. The ostensible purpose is the delivery of many papers, supposedly representing contemporary scholarly interests, though some are so phenomenally thin or irrelevant that one suspects that they were written in haste, merely to justify a claim for travel expenses. There are usually so many papers that they are read consecutively, and participants drift from one panel to another, often pausing for conversation or rest in the hotel lobbies. Ancillary purposes of the annual meeting are to elect new officers, meet old friends, recruit staff, search for better positions, inspect new publications, or merely to be seen.