ANZAMEMS Member News: Anna Wallace – Thoughts on the 10th ANZAMEMS Conference @ UQ, July 2015

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.