What Difference Does a Fast Pace Make?

I’ve been thinking about the pace of our Emerging Humanities Scholar Workshop, in part because my colleague Elizabeth Cali and I moved fairly quickly through three presentations.

Cali and I have met nearly every week for more than a decade to discuss some of these topics. We know where each other is going, and we move quickly to keep up with the next idea. In the workshop, we brought some of that rhythm into the room.

 
We also knew we were speaking with advanced scholars. We assumed they would recognize many of the situations we described, so we spent less time setting them up and more time naming patterns and offering examples. That let us cover a lot of ground.

 
Still, I wonder what a fast pace gives people and what it asks of them. It can leave less time to absorb an idea or form a question. But it can also bring energy to a presentation, make connections visible, and give people more ideas to carry away.