Duncan-Smith was discussing a recent government initiative through which long-term unemployed people of all ages and backgrounds are encouraged to take unpaid work experience in large businesses such as supermarkets and retail outlets. He was defending the policy in light of recent complaints, mainly coming from individuals who felt that shelf stacking in retail was entirely unsuitable to their desired career paths. Most prominent of these was a geology graduate, who had successfully filed a law suit against the initiative, arguing that forcing her to work unpaid while threatening to cut her unemployment benefit breached employment law.

Duncan-Smith defended his policy quite well. The most interesting moments for me, were when he said the following:

“I’m sorry, but there is a group of people out there who think they’re too good for this kind of stuff.

“Let me remind you that [former Tesco chief executive] Terry Leahy started his life stacking shelves.

“The next time somebody goes in – those smart people who say there’s something wrong with this – they go into their supermarket, ask themselves this simple question, when they can’t find the food they want on the shelves, who is more important – them, the geologist, or the person who stacked the shelves?”

These views, and especially the section at the end, raise all kinds of unanswerable questions about the respective values of knowledge, research and work. I’m sure many have opinions on these, and I’d be glad to hear some. However, for me, it boils down to one major issue which I think affect all involved in the University sector: that is, if we want to expand our University programmes and encourage more of our population to get degrees, exactly who will stack the shelves in supermarkets and exactly which kinds of jobs do we need to create for them?

It is not for me to discuss politics and the economy in a history blog. But I think all of us involved in teaching at University level need to seriously think about this. More and more of our young people are going to university, investing more and more money in their degrees, but if the jobs are not there when they come out, should this process continue? This is important for all students. With increasing numbers of us getting PhDs, are there more jobs in universities for them to go into? The recent and excellent piece by Guardian Student columnist, Vicky Blake, suggests maybe not (read here).

Today’s British economy is heavily slanted towards the services: most of my school and university friends are now working in things like insurance, web design, and other numerous roles in offices. We have a society in which you are deemed successful if you go to university, but in which (in my experience of teaching them for four years now) very few first-year undergraduate students really know exactly how they will use their degree afterwards.

Then there is an opposite view: that love for a subject alone is justification enough to take a degree. I firmly believe that if you want to go to university to study and subject simply because you love it, is reason enough to go. I myself did the same thing, and have (hopefully) come out the other side with good long-term career plans, and a job researching and teaching something that I absolutely love. But Duncan-Smiths’ comments raise a very important point, which is that there simply may not yet be enough high-level graduate jobs for everybody. The point he was making is that you have to also be prepared to roll your sleeves up during hard times. I myself know this well, having worked as a student in bars, in various low-level admin jobs, and even in a factory making frozen chicken products! However, I think also that he and his colleagues need to think: what exactly is the right balance between work and education, and can we ever really tell anyone that they’re not allowed to follow the subjects that they love, simply because ‘somebody needs to work in Tesco’? Of course not, but what exactly do we tell our students? Is it: ‘sorry, I’ve lived this dream but you’re not allowed to’?

Comments and questions welcomed!

Charlie

If you’re not up to date with historical biographies in your local Waterstone’s, it doesn’t take long to get to know the presenter. As his website is eager to inform you, Sebag Montefiore is a celebrated biographer of Stalin and Catherine the Great (his website even includes a tab named ‘Critical Acclaim’ (http://www.simonsebagmontefiore.com/index.aspx). In this series, Sebag Montefiore looks to build upon his well-received account of the city of Jerusalem (Jerusalem: the Biography) by offering an abridged history of another of the Western world’s most history-heavy locations: the city of Rome.

As a presenter, Sebag Montefiore is convincing enough. He adopts the well-worn middle-class-classicist persona, (the Telegraph called him a ‘natural raconteur’), appears complete with Panama hat and slacks, and backs this image up by his utter revulsion at the thought of venturing into ancient Roman sewer systems. (Panama) hats off to him for climbing into the dingy sewers, leading to some spectacular interaction with one of Rome’s understandably less well-known ancient landmarks.

Sebag Montefiore packages his three-part series as a history of the city of Rome, as viewed through and reflected in the various religious beliefs and practices observed within its walls. He takes us around some of Rome’s best-known monuments, offering up lashings architectural grandeur (with especially heavy servings of those ever-present columns for which Rome is perhaps most famous).

Although Sebag Montefiore ouches on ever stage of Roman urban history and tries to ensure that nothing is left out, this is perhaps the biggest problem with this first episode. Sebag Montefiore’s ostensible focus on the history of religion offers him an opportunity to consider a highly interesting aspect of ancient history that is certainly under-explored in modern broadcasting. Instead, what actually appears here is a fairly shallow exploration of only some of Rome’s religious history. While Sebag Montefiore names a great deal Roman deities, we are never informed of exactly who these Gods were or the various roles which they may be seen to have served. Similarly, although he notes a distinction between Christianity and Paganism, viewers must make their own inferences on exactly what types of beliefs this paganism entailed, and why Romans followed these beliefs.

I did enjoy this episode, but not really for what it taught me about the role of religions in Roman history. The strengths of this series appear to lie in Sebag Montefiore’s likeable and authoritative air, rather than the depth of his analysis. Although I couldn’t help thinking that Sebag Montefiore is perhaps missing a trick here, I’ll still look forward to episode two with relish, if more for how it looks, rather than what it says.

Episode two airs on Wednesday 12 December at 21:00 (GMT) on BBC Four. For a preview, see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/20627618

UK-based viewers can watch the first episode via BBCi Player, at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b01p65l8/Rome_A_History_of_the_Eternal_City_Episode_1/

First, let me please apologise for the inactivity in recent weeks. The curse of the researcher struck, and with a huge, all-consuming deadline brewing, I felt it best to leave the blog for a few weeks so as to avoid any hurried or otherwise below-par posts!

Happily, this huge deadline got me thinking for my next entry: ‘how to finish things’. Or, to put it differently, ‘how to get to a stage where you feel comfortable enough to let things go when you know more still could be done’! I think anybody who has ever studied or researched history will be familiar with this problem. For despite what was believed maybe a hundred years ago, history has indeed proved itself to be an imprecise art. There are innumerable ways of approaching the important topics in history, which all lead to different answers and more new questions. Trends, fashions and cycles in approach, interpretation and re-interpretation, ensure that a popular and well-received piece in one generation can be completely rejected by the next.

This makes it quite difficult to know exactly when to release a piece of historical research into the public domain. Even before you’ve ever shown it to peers, editors, or potential reviewers, it is quite easy to think about exploring an alternative methodology, or to muse on consulting a further section of evidence. The journey of self-evaluation and reflection is always a necessary experience. However, it is often very difficult to know exactly when to draw the line and be satisfied enough to move on to something new. With this in mind, I decided to offer some small tips from my experiences so far, on which I warmly welcome further advice or comments.

I think the first and maybe the most important point to realise, is that no piece of historical writing, whether an undergraduate essay, a dissertation, or even a published book, is ever perfect. I learned this the hard way whilst I was an undergraduate finalist. Having written 4,000 words for a tutor who didn’t mind us going over the 2,500-word ‘limit’, and having received an essay mark of 85 (which is almost as high as you can go in history in the British system), the essay still came back with a whole raft of suggestions for how it could be improved and what could be added next time (as if I had room). This same professor had a brilliant motto of ‘don’t get it right, get it finished’; the idea being that there’s no point doing research or writing about a topic if you don’t actually put it out there and share the things you’ve learned with others. For every published book that gets a second edition, you’ll still find several reviews which suggest possible areas of improvement. This is certainly an experimental discipline, with each and every one of us choosing to adopt different approaches and asking different questions, often of the very same evidence.

The second thing to remember is that whatever you’re writing at any given time is almost certainly not going to be the best thing you will ever write, nor will it have all the answers. Your newest work will always be your best, but that does not mean that you have to re-write your oldest work in order to catch up. If you do, you may find yourself in a never-ending circle of re-drafting. Particularly for a PhD or MA dissertation, it is valuable to remember that this work represents where you were then, and that you’ll get much more important feedback on how to improve it once you’ve finished it and get it marked or from your viva/defence, than you ever would if you don’t get it out there. Push that on a bit further and the same goes for the book, which again allows you to develop your ideas and approaches leading on from the thesis.

Don’t be overawed by others around you, whether peers or perceived superiors. Of course the chair of medieval history knows more than you – he’s the one who has been working on his topic for the best part of forty years, while you may only have a fraction of that experience. If he’s nice, he’ll remember that he was once there too. It is certainly a long process, and most historians only really come into their best work in their late 40s and 50s, so be patient! By the same token, don’t be put off by the more experienced graduate students/early-career academics. They are often loud like that just because they feel the same insecurities as you! Studying and writing history, like most sections of academia, is an open-ended process. Maybe one of the best pieces I’ve come across on this is from an anonymous maths professor, whose words I found within a booklet of potential teaching resources:

‘Perhaps I can best describe my experience of doing mathematics in terms of a journey through a dark, unexplored mansion. You enter the first room of the mansion and its completely dark. You stumble around bumping into furniture, but gradually you learn where each piece of furniture is. Finally, after six months or so, you find the light switch, turn it on, and suddenly its all illuminated. Then you move into the next room and spend another six months in the dark…’

Hands up who has been here more than once in their time!

I’ve not been trying to argue here that everybody should go publishing the first findings of their work left, right, and centre. It is certainly true that it takes time to present, digest, and then present the findings of historical research for dissemination. However, I feel that many historians and especially those in the earlier stages of a career, feel this reluctance more than they perhaps should.

In order to be able to finish a project in history, I think you have to realise from the outset that it will never actually be as finished as you want it. However, if you don’t learn to let go, nobody will ever read your work. If this happens, you can never get feedback (remember this can be both positive and negative) nor can you ever contribute to the wider research community.

I must apologise for the lack of recent posts. This has been caused by a: impending work deadlines and b: really interesting research! By way of an apology, I decided to include a little bit of this work in a new post, so that regular readers might be informed on (perhaps) cutting-edge historical research! I apologise if this is perhaps too academic, although I did try to make things as friendly as possible. Tried to keep it short and sweet!

Introduction

Modern scholarship has long identified a marked increase in English historical writing between c.1080 and c.1154 (Gransden, 1974; Southern, 1973; van Houts, 2002). More histories were written here in these years than in any preceding hundred-year period. However, although historical narratives increased dramatically in number in these years, previous research has struggled to ascertain exactly how much history was actually being read in these years, and for what reasons.

Narrative Histories and Annals

Richard Gameson (1999) has shown that none of the most popular histories in England between 1066 and 1130 were written in the period. Reviewing the character of collection patterns, Gameson concluded that only a small group of very well-established historical texts were acquired in large numbers. These included Bede’s Historia ecclesiastica (nine Anglo-Norman copies); Eusebius’ Historia ecclesiastica (five); Eutropius’ Brevarium historiae Romanae (six, plus one abridgement), with no sign of more recent works by near-contemporary authors.

If we wish to know more about the ways in which and the reasons for which scribes and scholars experienced history in this period, we may turn our attentions away from dissecting the minute pool of canonical texts by currently well-known authors like William of Malmesbury, John of Worcester, and Henry of Huntingdon, which do not actually seem to have been widely read until later centuries. It is more useful to study the copying and compilation of other classes of more widely-ready historical texts, and in particular, historical annals. Gameson (1999) noted the production or acquisition of ten sets of annals in Anglo-Norman England, while Paul Hayward identified eight English breviate world chronicles, and six sets of Norman annals from the same period (2010, vol. 1: 13-15). These figures suggest that Anglo-Norman scribes and scholars were far more likely to have engaged with contemporary historical writing through the study of the annalistic chronicle than through narrative history.

Reasons for compilation

How does a textual source containing material relating to the past earn the label ‘history’? We might today define a written historical source, as anything containing information useful to the study of the past. But in the medieval period, the conceptualisation of historical studies was very different from our own. Notable ‘historians’ including William of Malmesbury and Henry of Huntingdon, were in fact polymaths, not specialists in history alone (Black, 2006; Thomson, 1978).

This realisation may be extended towards the study of the annalistic chronicle. Almost all Anglo-Norman examples appear in manuscripts housing a variety of other materials which do not relate to the study of history. Two examples from twelfth-century Durham illustrate this point. One set of annals appears within Durham Cathedral Library manuscript Hunter 100; the other in Glasgow University Library, manuscript Hunter 85 (T.4.2). Both annals have been shown to have been originally housed alongside a variety of other texts relating to the study of computus (the calculation of time) (Gameson, 1999: 86-9). They are not given their own space, but instead appear in the margins of numerical tables used to calculate the moveable feast of Easter.

History?

To what extent may these two collections of annals be understood to have represented the study of history? The most obvious point is to note that they all certainly provide information about events from the past: in most cases, a single historical fact alongside the year in which it happened. While it cannot be argued that either source enabled the Durham monks to study the theory and practice of narrative historiography, they might nevertheless be seen to have facilitated the construction of a skeletal historical narrative. For example, entries relating to the Carolingian dynasty inform readers that Charlemagne died in 814; that he was succeeded by his son, Louis, and that Louis reigned for twenty-six years until he died in 840. Further along, the tables record the series of civil wars that dominated the reigns of Charlemagne’s sons and successors. Although it would require knowledge of the systems used to construct the tables, it is perfectly possible to compile an outline of Carolingian succession using the Durham Easter-table annals.

However, the locations of these records suggest that the study of history was not their primary intended purpose. The lack of later continuations and additions suggests that both annals were compiled in one sitting. Furthermore, listing the years and dates of many of the same events in these two, and at least two other known Durham annals at that time, does not suggest that these sources existed merely to record events. The original location of the Durham annals confirms that history was not the prime motivator. Both manuscripts collected many extracts and short texts as possible relating to the calculation of Easter and the organisation of the calendar, including Bede’s De temporum ratione; Isidore’s De natura rerum; the computus of Abbo of Fleury; Robert of Losingia’s Expositio de computo, and Dionysus Exiguus’ letter on the dating of Easter. Could it be that the Hunter 100 annals do not represent history at all?

Conclusions

Contextualisation of these annals supports Paul Hayward’s thesis on the nature and purpose of contemporary annalistic histories. Hayward argued that annals were deployed towards the needs of communal religious life, and in particular the accurate observance of the liturgical cycle. To deliver the correct prayers on the correct days required the study of computistical treatises and the mastering of schematic diagrams, including Easter-tables. Hayward argued that the addition of historical information provided ‘a basic map of what had happened over the longer term’ which ‘supported the teaching of computus’, and provided a visual representation of the passing of time (2010, vol. 1: 37). He thus concluded that such sources were ‘controlled by the needs of religious life (and the institutions that supported it) rather than by those of history as a forensic discipline’ (2010, vol. 1: 60).

Historical information within the calendar and Easter-tables of Hunter 100 thus made the study of computus more interesting and perhaps more relevant, and inevitably more easy. For example, if you know that Charlemagne died in 814, you know that the section above is 813, and the year below is 815. So the delivery of the liturgical cycle and the maintenance of the calendar are assisted by historical information. As such, these sources cannot be seen represent history, but they most certainly have history in them, and it can be argued with some conviction that this history allowed readers to orientate themselves within the broader patterns of world history, and to acknowledge the anniversaries of important historical events, and to thus gain a deeper sense of historical awareness.

References

Black, Winston (2006) ‘Henry of Huntingdon’s lapidary rediscovered and his Anglicanus ortus reassambled’, Mediaeval Studies, 68, 43-87.

Gameson, Richard (1999) The Manuscripts of Early Norman England, (c.1066-1130). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Gransden, Antonia (1974) Historical Writing in England (3 vols.). London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Hayward, Paul A. (2010) The Winchcombe and Coventry Chronicles: Hitherto Unnoticed Witnesses to the Work of John of Worcester (2 vols.). Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

Southern, R. W. (1973) ‘Aspects of the European Tradition of Historical Writing: 4: The Sense of the Past’, Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, vol. 23, 243-263.

Thomson, R. M. (1978) ‘William of Malmesbury as Historian and Man of Letters’, Journal of Ecclesiastical History, 29: 4, 387-413.

van Houts Elisabeth (2002) ‘Historical Writing’, A Companion to the Anglo-Norman World, eds., C. Harper-Bill and E. van Houts. Woodbridge: Boydell, 103-21

As a kid, we visited Framlingham all the time, mainly because alongside Orford (English heritage: Orford Castle) it is one of only two castles in Suffolk. Although I always enjoyed ‘Fram’, as you can see from the picture above, it really only consists of walls and a largely-empty interior. English heritage are therefore pressed to make the visit as interesting as possible, and I remember doing this as a child by watching things like Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar for kids, and the odd medieval re-enactment.

This time, English Heritage really impressed me with their interactive museum display. Located within the one surviving building, a sevententh-century poor-house, the exhibition charts the history of the castle and its surroundings. There is nothing overly innovative, but things are just done really well. What impressed me most, was the level of research communicated in the display. For example, the picture below shows that EH have clearly done thier bit to find out what was there before Framlingham castle, with notes on the description of the settlement in the Domesday Book, and a short history of the market, created by the actions of the Earls.

Framlingham, History

Elsewhere, a really fun cartoon video tells the general overview of Framlingham’s history, giving the room a sense of humour, and also of ’newness’ in the displays. There’s also a description of the Howard family, who owned the castle in the Tudor period, and provided Henry VIII with two of his six wives.

Regular readers will be pleased to hear that this is a short post for me! However, I was motivated to communicate my views, and really pleased that English Heritage are doing their bit to spread a deeper knowledge of history, and a more developed sense of where their visitors are, and what it is that they are seeing. Whether you call it ‘research-led public engagement’, or just a highler level of attention to detail, it is nevertheless welcome (especially if, like me, you paid over £6.00 to get in!).

Charlie

The integration of scholarship and research has provided a constant foundation to both my research, and my teaching at Durham. On various levels, I have found it impossible to separate one from the other. Whether giving a research paper to an academic audience, presenting work in written form, or engaging in conversation with peers and supervisors; university-level research depend on their teaching skills to introduce new topics, and to demonstrate methodologies and findings.

This post discusses the ways in which my seminar teaching has introduced new scholarship and research within the design of tutorials and learning activities.
Because my Level-1 module has the same chronological focus as my PhD research (1000-1300 A. D.), this has allowed me to conduct my teaching using the kinds of evidence, research skills and analytical skills which have featured regularly throughout my own research.

This has made the biggest impact in helping students to negotiate through the ‘thresholds’ of Level 1. In particular, past students have struggled to conquer three main problems. These are:

1- The huge geographical and chronological scope of the course.

2- The lack of a linear narrative within the course.

3- The lack of firm and incontrovertible ‘answers’ in university-level history.

This is borne out from evidence within the MEQs (link to post on MEQs) for 2011-12, in which 19.4% of respondents argued that the course themes did not relate very well. Specific complaints included ‘It often felt like there was a lot of chopping and changing in the topics, and as a result it was difficult to gain a complete overview of the period’ and ‘It is possible to sometimes feel lost when studying the three centuries as a whole – although thematic study has its benefits, one can often lose grasp of the chronology’, while one area of improvement which echoed the sentiments of many was to request ‘A greater emphasis upon and clearer idea of the chronology of the period in the first lectures’.

All of the above issues can be tackled through placing a heavier emphasis on negotiating students through the liminal spaces between the study of history at school and university.  For example, in the first seminar I always state that because the History degree is centred around the teaching of transferable skills and knowledge-bases, and that our course is not organised chronologically, but thematically, thereby allowing them to draw links between competing or complimentary bodies of evidence and the interrelating course themes. However, I have also learned that one of the best ways in which these thresholds can be bridged, is by demonstrating the process through which research is conducted with the aid of research-informed, enquiry-based learning activities.

One seminar examines a variety of evidence in order to investigate the expansion of cultural and political frontiers in the British Isles during our period. The leading primary source for this is the contemporary author, Gerald of Wales, whose narrative descriptions of Wales and Ireland have been taken to provide almost all of our current knowledge of this process. I split the seminar into three sections, with each one corresponding to a stage within the research process. To begin with, we analyse the context of Gerald’s writings: hard facts about leading historical figures and important events on the Welsh frontier, and all of the biographical information surrounding Gerald and his life. Next, we read some interpretations of Gerald’s writings, written by leading scholars on the topic, both past and present. Lastly, we read sections from Gerald’s works which illustrate the important social and political events along the designated frontier zones, and see if we agree or disagree with previous scholarly interpretations. In doing so, students learn that history is not an exact science. Learning that so much of it depends on differing interpretations of the same evidence, gives students the confidence to realise that they do not need to learn the entire chronology of medieval history from 1000 to 1300, if they can develop the essential skills which re required to interpret the evidence. This is a true threshold of Level-1 history.

This research-informed teaching has proven largely very useful. Students on the whole enjoy the in-depth engagement with medieval source materials, and begin to develop healthy levels of scepticism and understanding of their secondary source materials. On student reported ‘I found the way in which the seminars were based on primary sources interesting and helped bring some context to the topics’, while another wrote ‘I enjoyed the philosophical aspects of this module and also learning how the study of history is so subjective, and must be analysed at every turn’.

However, there are limitations to this approach, and the extent to which my present teaching can be said to be research-orientated and research-led. One student claimed that ‘As I have not studied medieval history before, I initially found the module very difficult and very broad. The seminars helped to focus the content of the module but I still feel that I have missed out a lot of content.’ This suggests that the research-informed methodology is useful, but that the respondent had still not yet quite reached the ‘threshold’ of their potential. Moreover, I do not feel that I can stake a realistic claim to research-led or research-oriented teaching until I can design my own courses from scratch, and to attract large numbers of both undergraduate and postgraduate dissertation students. I must say, I absolutely cannot wait to take part in this!

For those who do not know, Module Evaluation is a process that almost all University-level teachers have to complete at the end of each teaching year. Students are asked to complete a short questionnaire (an MEQ or Module Evaluation Questionnaire), which requests their honest, anonymous, opinions on topics through which the quality of their course can be assessed. These vary from school to school, but are usually done on paper or on-line, and normally include questions on topics such as tutor’s helpfulness and availability, whether or not the level of teaching matched students’ expectations, relation between lectures and tutorials, provision of resources and reading-materials, and normally end by asking whether or not students would recommend the course to a friend.

The first question you might think of asking (or if not, I know for a fact that some people do ask it!) is, ‘why should I bother with this? I know my teaching is good because I am a good researcher and I put lots of effort into planning my teaching.’ This may be true, especially of a tutor who has received lots of praise having been observed as part of peer review. However, I strongly believe that MEQs are perhaps more valuable than any other possible form of feedback. This is because unlike peer-review, they provide direct commentary from the intended target audience: the students. This is a rare occasion. While the odd student may sometimes approach you after the last lecture of the term to let you know how much they enjoyed the course, these brave souls are few and far between, and in any case, hardly ever have to guts to tell you what they think went wrong. As anonymous records, MEQs are therefore invaluable in assessing the successes of the module.

I’m happy to report that this year at least, most of our MEQs have come from really grateful and flattering students! I’ve had some lovely comments such as ‘Rozierhistorian was incredibly helpful with any difficulties in the module, and his lectures were easily the most engaging’, and my tutorials were described as ‘interesting and enthusiastic and made me want to learn and contribute in an environment that was professional but not too pressurised’. All great stuff for the CV and self-esteem!

However, some important lessons have been raised, which illustrate some other benefits of the process. For example, several suggested the need for a more rigid outline of the major events in European history between c.1000-c.1300, and so we’ve proposed maybe an introductory lecture on major events in chronological order, and also a timeline of events in course documents. My colleague, Gemma Wain (Gemma’s Blog) has also suggested that this timeline could be places on the excellent site, dipity.com, and regularly updated by students.

There are of course, many more issues than these relating to how module evaluation works, why it is useful and what our team have learned from this year’s examples. However, I hope that this blog has raised some useful food for thought, and I welcome comments or queries from readers based on their experiences of the process (both good and bad!)

Charlie

• If you want to avoid tricky questions after your paper, put on a panel with one really controiversial speaker. This will deflect attention.
• Even if you hear the Hildegard singers rehershing in the room next door, your paper must go on!
• If you host a drinks reception, don’t be put off by freebooters who come for the drink and have never heard of or don’t care about your insitution. That’s your fault for giving away free drink.
• Don’t be shocked to see a play recital in the corridoor after lunch.
• If you mention somebody else’s work, always be complimentary because the author could be in your audience (fortunately, all mine was happy and appreciative)!
• If you go to a publishers’ book stall, mention the fact that you teach, and you might get free books. However, never lie if you don’t actually teach.
• The walls of the dorm rooms are paper thin and you can hear everything-this seriously upset my sleep pattern on Thursday night, so thanks to whoever that was!

I hope people find these pointersw useful or amusing, and I’m sure I’ll blog again next May, or in the run-up to the Leeds IMC in July. Any more contributions would be welcome in the ‘comments’ section. I’ll close this blog entry with some fun pictures from this year:

WMU campus looking particularly green and friendly

Rozierhistorian getting animated while giving paper

Proof of the Spartan rooms

Local tourism giving it the hard sell!

Its not all work and no play…see you next year, Kalamazoo!

 

Happily, while some do dress up and go the whole hog, most really don’t. Every year, over 3,000 academics with medieval specialisms (including historians, archaeologists, literary scholars, linguists, manuscript specialists, and more) descend on the campus of the University of Western Michigan in Kalamazoo (Kalamazoo IMC website). The first medieval congress, hosted by the WMU Medieval Institute was held in 1962, and while its beginnings were small, the event has flourished into the single biggest annual gathering of medievalists anywhere in the world. Delegates range from veteran Professors through to final-year undergraduates, and include everybody in between. Having attended the congress for the last three years, I have decided to put together this short guide for those who are travelling to ‘the zoo’ for the first time in 2012, and also for the interest of those who are not, but wish to know more about what academic conferences involve.

Travel and Accommodation

Although the city of Kalamazoo is not huge, the WMU campus is reasonably far from the centre, and you’ll certainly need a taxi or bus from the station. Staying off-campus is only advisable if you can pay for lots of taxis, and if you already have friends at the congress (most of the socialising goes on during evenings and mealtimes so you don’t want to miss out).

Rooms in the Valley buildings (where most delegates stay) are Spartan. You get towels and bedding but only one pillow, and there’s also this annoying plastic mattress. Light sleepers beware! You also share a bathroom with a stranger, so be polite if you hear that somebody else is already in there! Having said this, the conference is so busy that you probably spend little time in the rooms anyway.

The food is functional, and sometimes really nice. The desserts at all mealtimes are fantastic, and especially the ice cream machine! It’s a good idea to make friends and eat out downtown in the evenings, as the campus can get slightly claustrophobic over the four-day conference.

Sessions

At any one time, there are around fifty sessions to attend across the whole campus. Pick the one that sounds the most applicable to your work, the most interesting, or the one which features a paper by a key figure in your field. Try to make a good impression with a cool question, although if you don’t have anything new to say, then don’t risk negative reactions. Although the conference exists in order to learn lots of new things, don’t be afraid to take a session off if there’s nothing interesting on offer. Attending three sessions per day for four days straight is very tiring!

If you are presenting

The most important thing to remember is not to go over time. Around three thousand words read slowly is about right for a twenty-minute paper. Be short and snappy, as everyone is going to be hearing plenty of papers over the week, and you need to make a good impression, so being under time is not as bad as it may seem. Don’t be alarmed if you have a small audience, or if people come in and out during sessions or even papers, as this is normal. If you don’t know the answer to a question after your paper, then just admit it: this works ten times better than attempting to cobble something together on which you have no authority.

Opportunities and Etiquette

Conferences offer invaluable opportunities to network. Early-career researchers will find Kalamazoo a great way to meet other people struggling to make their way in the world of medieval studies, so be sure to sit and engage with others at meal times and so on. However, there are rules! Don’t bombard people with evidence of how great your world-changing MA thesis is (because it probably isn’t, and even if you think it is now, you probably won’t after you’ve written your PhD). If you’re seeking to talk to a potential doctoral supervisor, someone who could give you a job, or a possible publisher for your new book, be humble, be direct, and be memorable. Like you, these people will be meeting hundreds of people over the week, so you have to make the right impression without being too aggressive. If you’re looking for a good grad school, pick up leaflets, go to the evening wine receptions advertised in the programme, and most of all, talk to people at them! That said, if the hosting institution makes no effort to engage you, then this is a good hint that they’re not really interesting in helping you-shame on them, not on you!

Shopping

Most people love the Kalamazoo bookshops, as they offer one of the best chances to look through new books, and snap up out-of-print gems. Leave space and set aside weight in your luggage! You can also pick up a whole range of items as presents, ranging from musical instruments to chain-mail clothing. It is also possible to buy lots of really cool WMU-branded clothing and accessories from the bookstore in the Bernhard Centre, although beware that this is closed on Saturday and Sunday.

The Dance

The Kalamazoo dance is infamous. Most delegates go at least for a little while, and many find it a great way to kick back at (nearly) the end of a busy and hopefully successful week. Some house rules are to avoid getting too drunk (obviously), don’t be over-flirty with the professor/publisher/employer you are looking to impress, and bring plenty of cash, as it can be pricy. People turn up wearing all sorts of kit, from jeans and t-shirt to full-on tuxedo, so anything goes. Being hung-over for the Sunday sessions is fine, but don’t ruin what could be a really useful session.

Conclusions

While I’ve come up with lots of hopefully useful ideas for how to enjoy the Kalamazoo and other general conferences, I couldn’t provide an exhaustive guide without being too specific or boring. However, I hope everyone who reads this might pick up at least one small gem, and I’d be happy to receive comments and further observations on the topic. The key thing to remember is to enjoy yourself, and take on every challenge and opportunity that you find!

Enjoy! Charlie

By coincidence, this event was held on the very same day that Education Secretary, Michael Gove, announced his ambition that university researchers should play a greater role in the design and assessment of the ‘A’-level syllabus. Throughout our discussions, both groups realised that the way history is taught in schools has a huge impact on the student transition to university research, and that closer contact between the two sides was a worthy ambition, to such an extent that even if Gove’s announcement had not been made, the subject would still have provided the key topic of our dialogue. With this in mind, I decided to outline a few of the most useful observations that we were able to make as a group on this important theme.

1: The methodologies of the school and university history courses are not the same.

Many of the university teachers suggested that one of the first tasks of the first-year undergraduate historian, is to in effect ‘un-learn’ the approaches which have brought them considerable confidence and A-level success. This is to say that which A-level students are required to demonstrate skills and knowledge as prescribed by the examinations board, the history degree demands independent approaches to evidence, arguments and risk-taking. All were in agreement that the two aims are largely incompatible.

2: Student study history at various levels for similar reasons.

Most teachers and lecturers agreed that while fostering student enjoyment and passion for history were valuable side-effects, students were in fact mostly motivated to achieve high grades in order to facilitate their progression on to the next level, i.e., getting into a good university, receiving good job offers, or places in further non-history-based study, such as law school. Finding the balance between creating good historians and employable candidates was considered a key issue by both sides.

3: Most school students arrive at university with a narrow body of historical awareness.

We all reflected that the design of the current A-Level course produces students who believe that they know all there is to know about certain topics (such as Nazi Germany, or twentieth-century British politics), but know or perhaps even care about little else (I, and many other medievalists, struggle with this in particular). We noted that while the ‘narrow and thick’ approach employed by the A-Level syllabus is useful towards viable textbook provision and student access to sources, this can nevertheless lead to two kinds of problems. Firstly, students may arrive at university thinking that they have ‘done’ topics like the Nazis and cannot possibly learn more, even if the academic researcher may spend a lifetime on such topics and barely scratch the surface. Second, unless students are fortunate to pursue their own personal historical interests far beyond their A-Level learning, many arrive at university fearful of studying new and comparatively alien subjects such as medieval, or modern Chinese history.

4: Students arriving at university have no idea how history is taught there.

While the average school timetable allows A-level students around five one-hour lessons per day, a typical undergraduate history degree might offer a first-year student perhaps one or two ‘core’ or ‘skills’ modules and two to four additional  selected courses, and usually provides between eight to fifteen contact hours a week. There was almost unanimous agreement that high-school students have little or no awareness of this until they arrive, thus causing widespread confusion regarding how to actually pursue their studies, and perhaps also a level disappointment, particular now universities charge much higher fees. The need to cultivate independent, and self-motivating students is key!

Is Gove right, and how can his ideas help?

While these represent the main issues discussed, there were obviously many more that cannot be forced into a single blog. These include tackling the perceived ‘stuffiness’ of university teachers, students overlooking history in favour of more obviously vocational courses, and the increasingly prominent issue of monetarising the perceived ‘value’ of a history degree.

Nevertheless, my four key points have been made in order to offer some evidence in support of Gove’s proposal. While it is not my place to criticise the current organisation and teaching of A-Level history (and I for one did enjoy my own A-Levels, despite the crippling absence of medieval topics) I do nevertheless firmly believe that increased contact between schoolteachers and university researchers is merited in the case of history. Although many thorny issues would need to be revolved, including deciding which academics should be involved; in what processes should they be involved; and how their involvement would fit into already crippling workloads, I can only see increased contact as a good thing. I the coming weeks, I shall provide further evidence of this, as I blog about my future planned visit to a local Middle School, and my experiences of teaching medieval history to a band of enthusiastic 11-year-olds.

Charlie