Satomi Kuroshima
Owing to Lorenza Mondada’s initiative, we had an occasion to commemorate Manny’s work and share our thoughts on his legacy during the conference dinner at IIEMCA 2024. A video of his engaging lecture for Sociology 244A Conversational Structures was also shown, followed by the musical performance honoring him organized by the conference chair, Yo-An Lee. Steve Clayman, Galina Bolden, and Kaoru Hayano offered their memories of him and reflections on this immense loss to our field on behalf of us who were indebted to him for inspiration through his significant and outstanding ideas and works, as well as for being fortunate enough to work with him. None of us would have imagined how it felt and what it actually meant to us as a field to be ‘without’ Manny. On this occasion, Steve reminded us of his legacy—the creation of the distinctive foundational domain of work and significant exploration into the structures of human conduct—as well as his defense of it by consolidating the groundwork for the CA as an established field. As evident in Galina’s tribute to him, Manny was an amazing role model for a scholar, a dedicated colleague who offers guidance to anybody engaged in CA research, a patient and encouraging mentor of an apprenticeship, and a caring father who always has faith in you and your serious work. Kaoru spoke for many of us who had been trained by him and who treasure “Manny Moment” in our own unique ways by remembering how he demonstrated to us via an analysis of a piece of data that fundamentally transformed the way we view talk-in-interaction. Now that the time for his noticeable absence has been realized, it is incumbent on us to thrive on Manny’s strict and rigorous stance when analyzing the data and descriptions of the phenomena, in addition to his dedication to every undertaking of his work. The event was an occasion for all of us to reflect on the fact that it is we who has inherited the future of CA as a field from him. Notwithstanding the feeling of sadness, we must acknowledge that this is an incredibly magnificent work that we must engage with and remember what he taught us about how to do CA.
IIEMCA24 in Seoul – Memorial for Manny Schegloff