Jess Bier
Graduate Center
City University of New York

At this year’s AAG annual meeting, I was more aware than ever of the fact academics work is just that—labor (Peet 2008).1 The kinds of topics that academics deal with are at the behest of capitalism, even down to the decisions that are made before ever starting a proposal. As such, the gaps in the AAG conference booklet, as in any conference booklet, were especially glaring this time around—such as the lack of any major sessions devoted to the Middle East, after several successful years of holding similar sessions, as well as the reduced number of presentations overall owing in part to the current recession. It is fitting then that the conference was in Las Vegas, because the city itself was originally conceived as an absence.