Now that was just grand old fun!

[aryanhwy]

Every conference should have a session on medieval and Renaissance dance. There's nothing quite like getting to know your fellow participants than suddenly finding yourself hopping sideways bumping into them pretending that you're a pea, or doing one of the "follow the leader" line dances and getting underneath an arch and suddenly finding two men you previously haven't met have their arms wrapped around you.

I was surprised at how many of the dances I didn't know -- I didn't know a single one of the Italian dances they did, I only knew the bransle. I'm terribly bad at remembering the names of dances that I've done, but one that they taught us, which resulting in complete chaos, was called "Annulo". I'd like to try that one again.

The rest of the day was also lots of fun; after I finished getting the English translation made of my handout, I went to a session on farting and excrement in medieval literature. It's really fascinating how these topics can be handled in a perfectly academic fashion as if they were any other topic, and yet you'll get ripples of nervous laughter throughout the audience whenever a dirty word is said. Following that, I came back to my room and did a dry run-through of my talk, and I was pleasantly surprised to see that I've easily got 20-25 min. worth of things to say. And it went quickly enough that I ended up with time to catch the shuttle to the other conference site for the keynote talk on "Language and Power in the 11th C", which discussed different approaches and arguments pro and con for vernacular liturgies in the 8th-12th C. There was a reception afterwards where I talked with the guy that I'd met at breakfast this morning, a 1st year Ph.D. student who is working on the cult of Saint Chad. Suddenly, what I do doesn't seem nearly so esoteric any more. Not amongst these people!

Got another full day tomorrow, the first session I want to go to is at 9am like today's, and my talk is the last one of the pre-supper sessions, after which I'm going to the medieval food workshop and then meeting up with jpgsawyer for what will by that time I'm sure be a much desired drink. Long day! But it should also be good.

Comments

[baronsnorri.livejournal.com]

Sounds like a perfectly marvellous day, dear Sister! Thanks awfully for the vicarious pleasure--it's almost like being there...almost.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

This conference happens every year, and covers pretty much all aspects of medieval studies. I'm sure you could find a topic to submit a paper on...

[baronsnorri.livejournal.com]

*You're* a tease! Sadly, not (yet) having a University degree, or forty-five years of recognised experience, any paper I submitted for consideration (short of an incredible novelty value) would not be thought worthy of a *Proper* conference. P'raps some day...(wistfully...)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

Not at all! About 1/3-1/2 of the people giving talks here are graduate students, either master's or Ph.D.'s, and of the remaining 2/3-1/2 there is a large percentage of people who are "indepedent scholars", i.e., people with no academic affiliation. Papers are judged on their content, not on the degree level of their authors.

[amykb.livejournal.com]

"Language and Power in the 11th C"

Ooooo!! Is this going to be published? I want to read!! I am so jealous. I did a paper on Language and Power in Edmund Spenser's A View of the Present State of Ireland in grad school and the whole topic is fascinating. (ok, so I'm kinda geeky that way...)

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

I don't know if there is any plan to publish, but there might be, as this was the Medieval Academy of America's keynote lecture. The speaker was Patrick Geary from UCLA; I bet there's a good chance that if you emailed him and asked for a copy of what he read, he'd have something to send.

[cryptocosm.livejournal.com]

I'm not familiar with a dance called "Annulo" (though that doesn't necessarily signify) - might it have been "Anello"? If so, I'd be interested in knowing how they reconstructed it. The SCA seems to regard Anello as one of the easier Italian dances, but I'm not certain how well their instructions fit the translated originals.

[aryanhwy.livejournal.com]

It was an Italian word meaning "ring", so if "anello" means ring, then that's it. We saw it once and did it once, and our doing it was, as I said, rather chaotic, so I'm not sure that I could tell you their reconstruction. The group presenting the workshop was the Arbeau Dancers, so maybe you can get in touch with them directly.