Many years ago, after our conference panel ended, a colleague and friend immediately returned to the room’s computer to ensure that his slides had been completely erased. He took such pains to make sure of this that I suggested it might be a bit paranoid. He replied with the old saying that just because you’re paranoid does not mean they aren’t after you…
I thought of this recently when several terms and concepts that we are using in our current project appeared verbatim in the call for papers of a symposium organized by another scholar—whom we had invited to one of our early meetings. When we contacted this person to note the coincidence, we were told that if we wished to participate in the symposium, we would be very welcome—and that we could, in fact, help cover the organizational costs.