Ellie Crookes, Doctoral Candidate, The University of Wollongong

Thoughts on the ANZAMEMS Conference 2015

Through the generosity of the ANZAMEMS bursary, I was able to attend my first ANZAMEMS conference this year in (not so sunny) Brisbane.

This was only my fourth time presenting at a conference, and giving a paper is still quite daunting for me. The collegial encouragement and warm reception that I received however soon put me at ease, and it was soon made clear to me that ANZAMEMS was a welcoming place for a new scholar. Further, the feedback that I received after my paper was engaged and insightful, and comments, particularly from the scholars Andrew Lynch and Sahar Amer, have since proved invaluable, shaping my interpretation of texts for one of my thesis chapters, and my project as a whole.

The Round Table discussion on ‘Career Options for Grads’ was also hugely valuable, highlighting the varying career options for higher-degree medievalist scholars. However, the session also proved quite dispiriting, as it was repeatedly made clear through the session to the PhD and Masters students in attendance that very few of us would get a job in academia. This is undoubtedly an important message to drive home for new scholars, but it nevertheless left me a little crestfallen. Luckily, my spirits were raised the next day with the Round Table on the ‘Maddern-Crawford Network’ which, under the names of two great female Australian medievalists, spoke of the formation of a community of female medievalist scholars. An auditorium of feminists was always going to put me in high spirits, but the ideas put forward by key female scholars in the field for a network of female medievalists made me feel more hopeful about my future as a medievalist in Australia.

Ultimately, I left the conference not only feeling positive about the state of my research project, but also about my future as a medievalist scholar.