A guest post by Sophie Durbin, UHI Archaeology Institute PhD student, on her recent ICMS conference in Kalamazoo, Michigan.
I attended the International Congress on Medieval Studies (ICMS) in Kalamazoo, from May 10 – 13, thanks to the generous funding I received from the UHI Graduate School.
The ICMS is the world’s largest academic medieval conference and draws up to 3,000 people annually, and I’ve attended for the past few years. Prior to the general conference, I attended the Digital Medieval Studies Institute, where I spent the day in a workshop called How to Build a Virtual Medieval Pilgrimage.
Because I focus on remote engagement with early medieval Orkney in my PhD research (Burial Assemblages of Early Medieval Orkney: Approaches for Remote Audience Engagement), which certainly includes researching pilgrimage sites and how to “activate” them from afar for learners, the workshop was a natural fit for me.
The day-long training brought together medievalists from many disciplines, which I always appreciate; I was seated next to a historian of medieval Jerusalem. By the end of the day everyone learned how to use GitHub templates to build a basic digital pilgrimage, and I hope to use this methodology in some of my upcoming research.
The general conference was a fruitful experience as well.
This year I chaired a session called Turn On, Tune In, Drop Out: Psychedelic Approaches to Medieval Objects, which prompted participants to present papers on the medieval through a synesthetic, psychedelic lens. I also spoke in a roundtable called So What? Medieval Studies in a Messy Now, in which I discussed my collaborative Medieval Line Project.
I also had a chance to attend a reception hosted by Different Visions, a medieval art history journal which published a recent piece I wrote on choreographic approaches to the medieval/Neolithic dynamic in Orkney. The co-editors of the special issue, Kris Racaniello and Ariela Algaze, on social sculpture were in attendance and it was wonderful to be in the same room with many of the other authors.
As PhD distance student, I try to be intentional about connecting with other scholars, and I’ll conclude by sharing how useful attending this conference was for continuing to build my academic network and learning how insights from fields outside archaeology might inform my work.
I had fascinating conversations with scholars specializing in areas as disparate as military history, landscape studies, linguistics, manuscript studies and eremitic/anchoritic studies, as well as a few fellow material culture/archaeology people. I walked away with new connections, ideas for next year, and a renewed energy for finding creative approaches to better refine and present my own research.
If you are interested in postgraduate research at the UHI Archaeology Institute, please get in touch by e-mailing studyarchaeology@uhi.ac.uk or see our guide page.
