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.”