Olivia Formby, History MPhil Candidate, University of Queensland
For a select group of postgraduate students, ANZAMEMS 2015 carried on with a one-day Postgraduate Advanced Training Seminar (PATS) on Monday 20th July, chaired by Dr Denis Collins (UQ). This was an incredible opportunity to exchange ideas on a more intimate level with the conference keynote speakers Professors Alexandra Walsham (University of Cambridge), Laura Knoppers (Notre Dame University), and Jessie Ann Owens (UC Davis). Each of the keynotes spoke to a different theme which related to our areas of postgraduate research, before leading a general discussion on the historical and methodological “problems” of that theme.
Professor Alexandra Walsham began the day with an expert presentation on the theme of “religion,” an intrinsic aspect of the medieval and early modern worlds, and one that she warns must not be ignored. The danger of post-confessional, Enlightened history in a highly secularised Western world is that it can become difficult to take seriously the dynamism of religious beliefs in the past. As historians, it is important to remain aware of our own biases, in order to avoid the terrible “condescension of posterity.” But even as we acknowledge the reality of religious belief – and unbelief – in the past, how can we access it, particularly through often highly-mediated sources? As a group, Walsham led us to examine two extracts from fifteenth-century heresy trial depositions and, by “reading between the lines,” we were able to dissect some interesting ideas about genre, heresy and the fluid, complicated nature of religion in quite a short space of time!
The theme of “representations” was presented by Professor Laura Knoppers, who framed her discussion around the power and uses of literary, visual and material representations in the past. This was a complex theme, and relevant to all of our work with primary source material. Knoppers asked, “What is the problem of representation?” Certainly, as with understanding religious beliefs in the past, the “problem” often stems from our modern view-point. Socio-political context and communal/individual memory were essential to the interpretation (and therefore the power) of representations in the past, and so it is important for historians to place representations – whether in the form of a woodcut or a poem – as closely in their contemporary setting as possible, before discerning their “meaning.” Knoppers had us compare the regal portraits of Charles II and Louis XIV in order to realise the many little ways in which a single representation might establish relationships, authority and identity.
The final theme, and perhaps the most contentious, was that of “emotions,” expertly negotiated by Professor Jessie Ann Owens. A popular topic in the ANZAMEMS 2015 program, the history of emotions is a relatively new field, and still grappling with questions of definition and methodology. As historians begin to agree that emotions were expressed and experienced differently in the medieval and early modern past (as compared with the present), the central issue becomes our ability to adequately historicise our discussion of emotions, or rather “passions” or “sensibilities” or “humours,” as well as to access intangible and individualised feelings in the sources. Owens led an active discussion of methodology, with Barbara Rosenwein’s “emotional communities” as the starting point.
After these thematic presentations, we were given the privilege of presenting a brief report of our postgraduate research and to receive direct feedback from the expert keynotes on our topics, sources and methods. Their advice was invaluable. Visiting Professor Graeme Boone (Ohio State University) also called upon us to ask ourselves “What is at stake?” in our research, to vocalise our central thesis question, and to draw from it an answer which resonates with us, in order to remain relevant academically and engaged personally. PATS was definitely an experience that I will be taking with me into the rest of my research degree.
