Charlotte Rose Millar, Early Career Researcher, The University of Melbourne

I always look forward to ANZAMEMS. This year’s Brisbane offering provided the same wonderful mix of amazing papers, friendly people and intellectual debate that I have come to associate with any ANZAMEMS conference. Thanks to the generous support of the ANZAMEMS committee, I was able to attend the conference for the full five days. As much as I was looking forward to the conference, I did not expect to experience the profound sense of belonging and purpose that I came away with. Perhaps I should provide some context. Almost a year ago, I submitted my PhD and I graduated in March this year. With the exception of RSA in March this year, which I attended in somewhat of a post-PhD haze, ANZAMEMS was the first conference I attended as an early career researcher. As many reading will know, this post-PhD period is a difficult time, financially, emotionally and academically. Like many recent graduates, I experienced a strange sense of loss after submitting my thesis and found it difficult to focus on the next project. ANZAMEMS reinvigorated me. Although I already had an idea of what direction I wanted my research to take, talking to ANZAMEMS delegates allowed me to shape my ideas into a much fuller form. It reminded me of my love of academia and academic research and gave me the energy and focus I needed to get working on my book proposal. In the two months since ANZAMEMS I have regained my sense of focus, my engagement with my sources, and my drive to pursue my research and am now completely re-immersed in academic life.

This would not have happened at any conference. ANZAMEMS reminds us of the wonderful scholarly community that we have in Australia. Although small, it is this smallness that makes it so valuable. ANZAMEMS delegates were intellectually rigorous, always encouraging, constructively critical, and, perhaps most importantly, genuinely interested in advancing the careers and research of early career researchers. This was particularly notable in Brisbane with the launch of the Maddern-Crawford Network for advancing female academics, a development that was met with overwhelming support. This network formalises what many ANZAMEMS members already do and could only have come out of a scholarly community that is genuinely committed to helping each other. I would like to thank the ANZAMEMS conference committee for their fantastic work in bringing the conference together and to all the delegates who made it such a wonderful experience. Here’s to another fabulous event in Wellington 2017.

Chantelle Saville, Doctoral Candidate, University of Auckland

ANZAMEMS Report 2015 – Reflections on an inspiring week.

When you find your flight home preoccupied by a swarm of ‘highly important ideas’ that you really must jot down on paper, you know for sure that you have attended a splendid conference. That is exactly what the experience of the ANZAMEMS Conference 2015 was like for me.

There was a real global atmosphere to the conference this year, with presenters attending from Scotland, Russia, Israel and the South Pacific. The theme of the first Round Table session was, in fact, ‘The Global Medieval’, discussing the prospects for future research aimed at bridging the gaps between continents and outlooks during the medieval and Early Modern period. With a number of conference panel presentations focused outside of Medieval Europe – such as “Japanese Political Thought in the 17th and 18th Centuries” – I would say that we are already on our way to achieving some great research with a ‘global’ perspective.

It was a pleasure to finally meet Samuel Baudinette (Monash University), and Prof. Yossef Shwartz (Tel Aviv University), both of whom spoke on the same panel as myself. Academics with an intellectual commitment to medieval philosophy and Dominican theology are few and far between in the South Pacific, so the opportunity to engage with a network of scholars outside the University of Auckland who share an interest in this area was greatly welcomed. I found that the discussion during and after, my panel session was very insightful, especially the challenging questions put to me following my presentation. Further, I found that listening to and observing how others presented their papers got me thinking hard about how I might present my own research more effectively, giving me models for future conference presentations.

Other papers that caught my interest included Prof. Andrew Lynch’s presentation “Reading ‘Violence’ in Later Medieval Narrative”, in which he interrogated the meaning of ‘violence’ as a medieval concept, arguing that ‘violence’ was understood more as an ’emotional force’ than a ‘physical force’. I also enjoyed Dr Diana Jefferies paper “Making Meaning of Mental Illness”, which presented a brilliant interdisciplinary approach to making meaning of mental illness in The Book of Margery Kempe and Thomas Hoccleve’s Complaint. Drawing upon her skills and expertise in the field of contemporary nursing, she emphasised the need to try to understand how the authors of the Middle English texts conceptualised and thought about the conditions they were suffering, rather than giving them a ‘post-diagnosis in hindsight’. Especially interesting was Diana’s descriptions of the kind of ‘care’ Margery and Thomas received, and the kind of ‘care’ that an individual suffering from mental illness might expect to receive today.

It is worth noting that I am a doctoral candidate in the late stages of thesis completion, so my decision to attend the ANZAMEMS conference this year was not automatic and I was not completely at ease in my environment due to the constant anxiety of finishing my work. However, the members of the ANZAMEMS community whom I talked with during lunch and tea breaks were entirely supportive and empathetic towards my position, offering advice on how to cope and manage the pressure of completing a large research project. This, I feel, is one of the very valuable aspects of the ANZAMEMS organization. As the generational spectrum of members stretches from MPhils to senior research academics, there is great opportunity for those with advanced experience to offer their personal insights to the members of the community on the first rungs of the academic ladder.

On behalf of the graduates who received travel bursaries this year I would like to thank those who enabled us to attend the conference. It was a truly rich and productive collaborative experience.

Shannon Lambert, Doctoral Candidate, University of Adelaide

In July, I attended the ANZAMEMS Conference at the beautiful University of Queensland. I was fortunate enough to have the support of an ANZAMEMS conference bursary to help with some of the costs associated with attending. This was the second time I have received an ANZAMEMS postgraduate bursary for conference travel, and I would like to thank ANZAMEMS for their commitment to supporting postgraduates. I know I represent my fellow postgraduates when I say that this support is greatly appreciated.

Perhaps because of the topic of the paper I gave—“becoming-drone” in Shakespeare’s The Rape of Lucrece—the word “buzzing” comes to mind when I think back on this conference. In the breaks between sessions, the hall was filled with conversation, and it was so motivating to be part of a collective with a shared interest in medieval and early modern periods. I always enjoyed hearing about people’s research, and sharing what I do. In the sessions I attended, the presenters captured the attention of the audience, who, in turn, expressed their interest by asking carefully thought-out questions. From the sessions I attended, I particularly enjoyed the affective transmissions of Jennifer Clement’s “Sermon Theory,” the liveliness and animation of the panel on “Facial Feeling in medieval English Literature,” and, as so many others have noted, the enthusiasm which flowed from Barnaby Ralph’s “A sense of ‘humour’?”

I gave my paper in the final session of the final day. While it was not my first experience preparing and delivering a conference paper, it was the first time I had spoken in front of a specialist early modern audience. Unlike the first paper I gave at a conference, which came at the beginning of my candidature, this paper was drawn from the deep depths of the final chapter of my thesis; therefore, in preparing my paper, I faced the (new) challenge of having to adapt detailed work I had done into an accessible twenty-minute talk. What, for example, were the “key terms” of my paper? What could I assume people would know? And, how could I (temporarily) bundle together the spindly threads of a Deleuzian approach, while making sure that this bundle was loose enough to allow people to thread its strands into their own lines of thinking? I was so grateful for the audience’s receptiveness to my post-structural reading of Shakespeare’s Lucrece, and the questions I was asked were refreshing. The audience also helped me to develop my thinking about the early modern materials which informed my talk. I would like to especially thank Karin Sellberg for her positivity, and for being so forthcoming with her questions and feedback. The greatest lesson I will take away from this conference is to have confidence in myself and my work—developing this will help me to manage the nerves of facing the “unknown” in the post-paper question time.

Thank you once again to ANZAMEMS for organising such a lively conference, and to the bursaries committee for your continued support of postgraduates. Congratulations to everyone who attended the 2015 ANZAMEMS conference; you made it an event I will remember for its diversity, energy, and “buzz.”

Ayelet Zoran-Rosen, Doctoral Candidate, New York University

ANZAMEMS Conference Report

The tenth biennial ANZAMEMS conference was my first conference in the southern hemisphere, and it was a wonderful experience. The conference program beautifully manifested the many faces of medieval and early modern life. Panels covered an impressive amount of topics from multiple disciplinary and methodological perspectives, including fear, hostility and violence alongside politics and the production of art; discussions of the aspirations of kings and queens as well as the lives of their humble subjects; analysis of religion and science and many more.

Even though there were not many participants working on the Ottoman Empire in the conference, my paper fit nicely into the panel entitled “the representations of power”, with paper topics ranging from the Vatican and Venice to the Ottoman Balkans. The panel showed that when it comes to power and its reflection outwards, grouping these different rulers and political systems together makes for an interesting and meaningful discussion. I was happy and grateful to have received many thoughtful questions and comments from the audience during and after our panel.

It is a well-known fact that the importance of academic conferences lies not only in the new research that is presented during the talks and panels, but also in the social events before and after them. This was definitely true for this conference as well. Thanks to the efforts of the organizing committee at the University of Queensland, I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of many colleagues from across Australia and New Zealand and learn about relevant research in their home institutions. I am sure that these connections will prove fruitful in the future, and I look forward to meet everybody again in 2017, in Wellington.

Roberta Kwan, Doctoral Candidate, Macquarie University

ANZAMEMS 2015 report

It was at the 2012 ANZAMEMS-sponsored PATS workshop at the University of Otago that I was helped to develop a deeper understanding of the necessarily interdisciplinary nature of research in the early modern period. While, as a literature student writing a PhD on Shakespeare and Reformation theology, I knew that my project sits somewhat at the intersection of literature and theology, I didn’t appreciate the breadth of knowledge from a range of other disciplines I would also require. I departed from the workshop with some constructive approaches to my project, and a lot of work to do.

That was in the first year of my PhD candidature. Nearing its end (hopefully) I was especially looking forward to the opportunity to hear from scholars across a range of disciplines at this year’s ANZAMEMS, including some people I met at the 2012 PATS. I enjoyed hearing Barnaby Ralph range across a number of disciplines in showing how the employment of humoral theory shifted from the medical to the artistic realm, and found Alexandra Walsham’s lecture particularly beneficial. The abundant and intriguing images she presented and discussed gave a rich sense of the material culture of the Reformation, and how the Reformation narrative was remembered by everyday English men and women. As Professor Walsham argued, the presence of theologically- and religiously-derived images on household items for both ideological and commemorative purposes provides evidence that nuances the widely-held perception of the reformers as unreservedly iconoclastic. This was an insight I found almost immediately relevant for my project. I was also pleased to see Shakespeare make several appearances in the programme, and to have the opportunity to hear some thought-provoking papers on various plays and aspects of performance.

I would like to thank the organisers of this year’s conference for putting together a stimulating, interdisciplinary programme. Thank you also to ANZAMEMS for supporting postgrad students, financially and otherwise—this was the second occasion in which I have been a grateful recipient.

Hilary Locke, Masters Candidate, University of Adelaide

ANZAMEMS 2015 Conference Report

In amongst the blur of delayed planes, the hubbub of Brisbane city and CityCat ferry rides, the ANZAMEMS conference this year offered a range of new experiences. The tranquility of the leafy UQ campus seemed countered by the presence of so many buzzing academics, all discussing the previous session, and figuring out which panel would be best suited for the next. In-between this chaos of morning teas, lunches, and other social events, I presented two papers. Whilst I was felt it was a bit ambitious when I was writing both papers and stressing immensely, the pay-off made it particularly worthwhile.

The first paper was part of a masculinities panel alongside colleagues of my own university and new and old friends. The excitement of this session was perhaps not giving my paper, but the reception of our papers as a whole. People were intrigued about masculinity and what the speakers at our session had to say about the topic. Even though we covered several centuries and the topics appeared quite distant, the interlocking and constant themes of the male self drew the audience in with enthusiasm. The second medieval masculinities panel, which I chaired, followed the next day with similar amounts of excitement and interest. This soon became a theme of my ANZAMEMS experience: even if people were not linked by topic, theme or interest, everyone was keen to ask questions, engage and were willing to hear what you had to say in return.

By the time I came to give my second paper, I was excited. This was an altogether unusual feeling for me, as I was used to nerves and anxiety usually dominating my preparation. This paper was the most successful part of my conference. I was calmer in the delivery, more prepared for whatever questions would come my way. I recognised the faces of people who had presented in the audience, and I was pleased when they had asked me questions and was draw in by the story my paper told. Most importantly, it gave me a wider audience to sound my thesis ideas to, and I was provided with excellent feedback and suggestions.

This is what I will take away from my experience in Brisbane this year. The enthusiasm to ask, and then to listen. As a wider community of medieval and early modernist drew together, there was contentedness to be in the same place and enjoying the discussions that followed over tea, or wine, or the ones that will continue in email correspondence. This was perhaps the most successful conference experience of my postgraduate career, and shall start saving my pennies to get to the next one in Wellington.

Alexandra Day, Doctoral Doctoral Candidate, University of Newcastle

ANZAMEMS 2015, hosted by the University of Queensland, was my first conference as a postgrad student. I am very grateful to the Bursaries Committee for their assistance with my airfare, and to the whole ANZAMEMS committee for all their work preparing and running the conference. It was an excellent time, for me, for such intellectual nourishment. Eight months into my research on collaboration and early modern women’s writing in England, I was clear enough about my direction not to be blown off-track, goldfish-like, by the latest and most shiny new thing, but still flexible and open to influence. And I found plenty to be influenced by, both in sessions and in corridor conversations.

As I am learning is normal for most postgrad students, even at the larger universities, my research hours are fairly lonely. Browsing the enormous ANZAMEMS program beforehand opened my eyes to the wealth of research that academics and other postgrad students do all around Australia and New Zealand. During the week I didn’t waste an hour. I attended all the sessions on literature that I could manage, and learned just as much from the questions being asked of medieval texts as I did from early modernists. That said, I was particularly pleased to meet Julie Robarts and Amy Sinclair from Melbourne University, whose work on early modern Italian writers parallels, in some broad senses, my own. Both are further along in their research degrees, and I so admired their poise and confidence in their subjects. At the postgrad drinks on the Wednesday night I was able to meet many more of my cohort. Over deepfried cocktail snacks I learned about the origins of the word jihad, the significance of map making in medieval Italy, discussed the clash of the personal and the professional in PhD life, and most importantly coordinated a plan of action for the Customs House dinner the following night.

Apart from (finally) meeting some other early modern/ medieval students, highlights of the week were the roundtable sessions. I had no idea what the ‘Global Medieval in Antipodes’ meant before I attended this session. Walking away afterwards I still wasn’t entirely sure, but I think the impulse was something I understood: the desire to look from a different perspective; to find new ways to approach subjects which have colonised an intellectual landscape so long, that they have come to seem entrenched, necessary and ‘natural’; to unsettle; to upset; to problematize the idea of period and place as impermeable borders. These questions stayed with me during the week, as I asked myself what this might mean for my own research? Again, no clear and single solution presented itself, but I did find myself wondering, for the first time: what exactly were the ‘business interests’ that John Lumley was engaged in, at least early in his life, and which presumably helped to finance the enormous library which his wife, Jane Lumley, helped to assemble? And if I could trace the family’s lending and borrowing of money across borders, what picture would emerge? How did Lumley’s interest in geography manifest, and what was this family’s attitude towards international exploration? Had I paid enough attention to Arundel’s visit to Italy? What this session stirred up in me then, was a sense of possibility. And a sense that this is the time to make sure that my questions aren’t just new, or worthy, but that they are also politically alive, intriguing, and urgent.

Dr Anna Wallace, Early Career Researcher, The University of Sydney

ANZAMEMS conference report

Though this was not my first time attending an ANZAMEMS conference, it was the first for me since finding myself in the nebulous category of ‘early career researcher’. I have always appreciated the efforts of ANZAMEMS as an organisation to support postgraduate students and bring them to conferences, and as I currently have no permanent job and thus no institutional backing, I am doubly appreciative of ANZAMEMS’ inclusive support. I am also optimistic about the formation of the Maddern-Crawford network, with one of its goals being to support women scholars of all types, not just those employed in the academy. Despite the bleak outlook for postgrads looking for academic jobs, it is wonderful that so many of us were still able to attend the conference, meet each other, and share our work. I certainly found much to inspire me.

I was particularly struck by connections that could be made within and across panels, speakers, topics, eras, and disciplines. The interdisciplinary nature of medieval studies has always been apparent, but it is perhaps becoming more important as we seek new approaches. The roundtable on the global medieval in the Antipodes particularly highlighted this issue. There are clearly rich rewards for venturing outside one’s own research area, and the nature of the ANZAMEMS conference is particularly helpful here. With such a broad range of papers I heard many far outside my own small corner of medieval studies. I learned far more from the depth and range of papers than I might have had the conference catered exclusively to my interests (one can dream). One of my current areas of research is humoural theory in Anglo-Saxon literature and humoural theory was threaded throughout the conference, sometimes where I least expected it.

Barnaby Ralph gave two excellent papers, one on the history of humoural theory, which was not only exceptionally interesting but entertaining. Anyone who was fortunate enough to see Barnaby Ralph speak (or indeed play, for he is also a celebrated musician) will not forget the experience any time soon. Professor Laura Knoppers’ keynote address mentioned humoural theory in the context of the emotion of disgust, and she touched on Bakhtin’s concept of the grotesque body. Bodies as well were a theme for me throughout the conference, from the marked bodies of witches, to Lady Margaret Beaufort’s performative vow of chastity, described by Sally Fisher as exerting control over her body, to women’s own views on the “curse” of menstruation in the 17th century as discussed by Ursula Potter.

One paper in particular demonstrated to me the importance of continuity of chronology in medieval research: Dmitri Antonov’s presentation on Judas in East Slavic folklore and iconography. Antonov traced the medieval origins of modern superstitions, idioms, fables and images surrounding the figure of Judas, proving the evergreen influence of the past upon the present. This kind of research is not always easy to do, requiring as it does a breadth of work that takes time, patience, and multidisciplinary skills. The latter can be especially disconcerting, but it is more likely than not to be fruitful and productive, as the roundtable on the global medieval in the Antipodes highlighted. We learn so much when we look elsewhere, and I certainly now feel challenged to step outside of my comfort zone and see what I can find.

Aidan Norrie, Doctoral Candidate, The University of Otago, NZ

Thoughts on #ANZAMEMS2015

I had been looking forward to attending the 2015 ANZAMEMS conference since UQ was announced as the venue. After moving from UQ to the University of Otago in New Zealand to undertake my postgraduate research, I was especially excited to come back and visit UQ, and to engage with the vibrant Medieval and Early Modernist scene that New Zealand is sadly lacking. Professor Laura L. Knoppers’ keynote on Andrew Marvell and the Aesthetics of Disgust served as my welcome to the conference – and what a welcome it was! It was a fascinating lecture that was supported by a visually rich PowerPoint: thank-you to the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions for sponsoring Professor Knoppers’ visit. The first panel I attended during the day – ‘Dissecting the Body’ – was very interesting. All three presenters gave lively and engaging presentations: and given the rather grim nature of their topics, this was no easy task. The other panel I attended – ‘In Sickness and In Health’ – was well beyond the bounds of my own research interests, but was nevertheless a fascinating and engaging experience that got me thinking about my own period in different ways. Karin Sellberg’s presentation was particularly thought provoking, and served as a timely reminder that anachronistic views of the past as ‘primitive’ when compared to the present have no place in modern historiography.

Professor Alexandra Walsham’s keynote on the Thursday of the conference was definitely a highlight for me. Her masterful analysis of the intersection between collective memory and material culture shows how fruitful interdisciplinary work can be. The Centre for the History of European Discourses did us all a great favour in sponsoring her visit. I particularly enjoyed being able to sit in on CHE’s session, ‘Facial feeling in Early Modern England,’ as all three speakers gave fascinating talks on very different aspects of the intersection of emotions and Early Modern England. The afternoon panel, ‘Late Medieval Masculinities,’ was also beyond the bounds of my research, but was deeply interesting. As I tweeted during the session, it was particularly refreshing to listen to Deborah Seiler’s presentation that moved beyond the ridiculous obsession with Edward II and the hot poker! Amanda McVitty’s presentation on early fifteenth-century treason trials was also well delivered and informative. The conference dinner on Thursday night was also an excellent networking opportunity, and I’d again like to thank CHE for sponsoring postgraduate attendees, as I would not have been able to attend the dinner otherwise.

My presentation was up on Friday afternoon. While this was by no means my first conference presentation, it was the first delivered at a conference with such a large group of Early Modernists present. Not only did the various pieces of technology all agree to work simultaneously, I also received some insightful and helpful questions after my presentation. I was also particularly grateful to Kiera Naylor for live-tweeting my presentation (you can check it out here: https://storify.com/mskieralouise/anzamems-2015-day-4).

The widespread and co-ordinated use of the conference hashtag – #ANZAMEMS2015 – was particularly noteworthy, and has definitely helped me connect with sessions I wasn’t able to attend due to clashes (although I would suggest we all put our thinking caps on and try to come up with a hashtag that doesn’t take up almost 10% of our character limit). Finally, I would like to extend my admiration to the organising committee – and in particular, the conference chair Dolly MacKinnon – for the outstanding organisation and running of the conference. It was a pleasure to attend such a well-coordinated event: ANZAMEMS 2015 at UQ has set the bar high for Victoria University of Wellington in 2017!