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.