… in which Joanna revisits her former life
Yer average academic conference. -ish.
aka Pasquale Cati, The Council of Trent (1588)
Rome, Santa Maria in Trastevere.
Image here from: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Council_of_Trent_by_Pasquale_Cati.jpg
As some of you know, I used to be an academic too. The last few days have seen me making a brief foray into my former stomping ground, aka attending the 44th Battle Conference on Anglo-Norman Studies - one of several conferences which were central annual fixtures in my former life and, in many ways, my favourite. Since leaving academia for good in 2016, I’ve sorely missed the addictive camaraderie and intellectual stimulation of new and established academics discussing their research - both formally and informally - in such a focussed and supportive environment.
Alas venue and delegates’ attire are rarely this swanky (at least in my erstwhile discipline), but you get the idea
Cards on the Table, ITV, 2005
Image here from: http://investigatingpoirot.blogspot.com/2013/08/episode-by-episode-cards-on-table.html
As those of you who have attended academic conferences will, I’m sure, agree, they entail a peculiarly heady mix of conversation and interaction, and a residential academic conference is sui generis. Think a country house murder mystery - à la Hercule Poirot - and you’re in the right zone (especially in some venues).
It can become a quasi-monastic experience, with everyone eating every meal and socializing together, attending the same papers, visiting the same historical sites and/or archives, and sleeping in the same place (not, I hasten to add, as frequently together as most campus novels would have you believe), creating the circumstances for intense intellectual conversations over several days, evenings, into the wee hours, and, occasionally, quite a bit beyond the wee hours.
Inevitably, perhaps, there is occasionally alcohol involved during the later parts of these proceedings. Indeed one friend and former colleague memorably dubbed a particular conference as not so much a conference with a drinking problem as ‘a drinking club that has a historical conference problem’.*
*[I can neither confirm nor deny whether I was at said conference, but, hypothetically, had I been there, any arising subject matter would be classified, and could not be disclosed]
Nevertheless, there is serious work done throughout. No really. And conferences are jolly exhausting beasts at the best of times, regardless of the hours one has kept or the alcoholic units one may or may not have imbibed.
But in some ways, of course, these are not the best of times. On a personal level, it is a long time since I’ve needed or been able to concentrate on things academic in such an intense way over four days, evenings, and nights, and to be honest it was a bit of a shock to the system. On a still more personal level, it was a difficult step to take emotionally, but don’t worry - I shan’t bore you with details of that side of things. But it was glorious notwithstanding.
On a more general level, it was the first conference I’ve attended online - and as some of you know, it can initially be daunting to do something one is used to doing In Real Life online. But - as so many of you have told us since Robert’s courses went online - that very quickly becomes not in the least problematic!
What I hadn’t accounted for, however, was how flipping tiring it is to venture back into post-Lockdown Real Life, even online.
Goodness me! Robert and I have had occasional brief forays into The New Normal, but they have been but brief. I take my hat off to those of you who have had longer excursions into The Real World - and especially those of you who have joined us for Robert’s classes even while you were there!
This is, of course, something we’re all learning how to do again - vide the numerous media articles on how to cope with venturing back into The World (see, e.g.). But attending this conference confirmed to me that - as so many of you have said over the last year or so - one of the welcome silver linings of These Unprecedented Times (TM) is that we’ve found new ways of doing things, which might just be even better than what we were used to.
But back to the Battle conference… I’m happy to report, O Denizens of Wright History, that Robert was as supportive of me venturing into online life as I have tried to be of him doing so.*
* [Oh no. Wait. That’s not quite how it was… **]
** […but he did, to be fair, supply me with snacks and appropriate drinks throughout the proceedings when he wasn’t trying to distract me. So he’s not banished to the coal shed…yet…]
Anyway… As a few of you know, Robert and I are working on a Wright History course which is very different to the format you all know and love, with a much more interactive model which centres on discussion, based on guided reading i.e. closer to a university seminar model than to lectures. Additionally, I’ve not entirely ruled out going back to research as an independent scholar. Attending Battle has given me a lot of food for thought on both of those possibilities. For now, however, I simply need to recuperate! Apologies in advance if I don’t answer any communications as quickly as usual. I’ll be back in the saddle once Morpheus has released me from his embrace.
Me just now
aka Morpheus bringing sleep to a man in a bed. Detail of a miniature in 'L'Épître Othéa', in Christine de Pizan, The Book of the Queen, c. 1410-c. 1414.
London, British Library, Harley 4431 f.130v: https://www.bl.uk/catalogues/illuminatedmanuscripts/ILLUMIN.ASP?Size=mid&IllID=22608
So essentially, I guess, this is a long way of saying “I’m knackered”, so to the denizens of History of York and Byzantium this week - please be gentle with me!