20100518.1140

As my CV indicates, I have some experience presenting at conferences. Since 2006, I have attended one or two conferences each year, and I do not attend if I am not going to present. But never before this past weekend had I given a paper at so large or important a conference as the International Congress on Medieval Studies. And as I approached the event, I found myself quite nervous.

I attended a fair number of panels during the conference. The first, "Philosophical Themes and Issues in Malory's Morte Darthur," initially helped to calm down my nervousness. The panelists gave fine papers, but not so brilliant that I had no hope of matching them, or that I would embarrass myself against them.

The second panel, "Taking the Adventure in Malory's Morte Darthur," gave me a similar impression. The research was good, as were the papers, and I realized that my own work would not be so far behind them as to be unacceptable.

But the third panel, "Food and Drink in the Arthurian Tradition," was a doozy. I well understand that the presenters have been in the field for some time, and so it is entirely sensible that they know quite a bit more than I. But the extent of their command of the material was intimidating, as was the force of their personalities. They were not rude in any way, not dismissive or haughty, but I found myself entirely out of my depth with them.

Fortunately, the fourth panel I attended, "The Young(er) King Arthur," eased me a bit. Problems with multimedia capacities and reminders of just how much the 80s have to answer for served to bring to mind the truth that we all have off days.

It is also true that it is easier to deal with such off days when there are a number of good days behind them.

My own presentation helped me to have such a good day. The society whose session I presented in seems to run a bit light on literary work, concentrating on historical and archaeological, and so my presentation on Castiglione went over well. The audience was engaged and asked a number of fine questions. And the fairly senior professor with whom I was on the panel asked me for my bibliography, which I found quite flattering.

I shall, of course, be sending it right along.

In addition to the excellent panels I attended, I was lucky enough to get to go to a number of non-panel events. Among them was a Spenserian dinner, to which I was invited by one of my professors. The Spenserians were welcoming and jocund, displaying a sense of humor that I appreciated.

And such a sense of humor seems to be a salient feature of the conference as a whole. A number of the academic gatherings I have attended have been dry, stodgy affairs. Admittedly, academia requires seriousness, but gravity does not mean being abstemious of joy.

Joy in the work ought to be at the root of it; the other compensations offered are not sufficient to support those who do not find happiness in doing this thing called scholarship. And the joy should be evident in the work, a joy all too often lacking but out in force at the International Congress on Medieval Studies.

That, as much as anything else, will bring me back to the conference. Kalamazoo is a nice town, the conference itself important for my career, and the sessions illuminating, but it is the joy that the scholars there show that invites me to go again.