May 17, 2012
Catholic University's 6th Annual Graduate Student Conference and Medieval Banquet and its first Medieval Day offered students, professors, and families opportunities to exchange ideas, sample mead, and engage in medieval entertainments and games of chance and skill.
"Our annual Graduate Student Conference on Medieval Studies started six years ago as a small gathering of English graduate students presenting their graduate class research," says Lilla Kopár, assistant professor of English and director of CUA's Center for Medieval and Byzantine Studies.
Over the years, the event has grown into a regional meeting of young medievalists and "a much-awaited annual event among CUA students," Kopár says.
Beth Ooi, a first-year Ph.D. student in the Medieval and Byzantine Studies Program who organized the conference, said the event, held April 19 and 20, drew 15 student presenters from CUA, Georgetown and George Washington universities, Boston College, Longwood University (Virginia), and King's College, London.
Papers and panel discussions centered on cultural borders and cross-cultural encounters, identity, medieval literature, gender issues, and monsters. "There are a lot of monsters in medieval literature," says Ooi. "Monsters are a good way to consider 'the other,' a major theme in the medieval period."
The conference is meant to provide a public forum for graduate students to showcase their research, get feedback, and practice the art of presenting at conferences, says Kopár. "We also want students to get a sense of the importance of building scholarly contacts and becoming part of an intellectual community. Therefore, the conference is deliberately kept small and includes an important social component-our famous Medieval Banquet."
The evening of the conference featured a medieval potluck banquet, where attendees, participants, and their families feasted on medieval dishes and-new this year-sampled a variety of meads from a local Maryland meadery.
At the end of the meal, diners voted for their favorite dish. Spinach pie came out ahead of the rice pudding on the vote of the children in attendance. Tastour's Pris winner Heather Judd, a graduate student in English, took home an inscribed wooden spoon and a bottle of mead.
What is a medieval event without a festival? This year CUA's Medieval Society organized the University's first Medieval Day, which took place on the Edward J. Pryzbyla University Center lawn on April 21.
Eleanor Brasfield, senior history major and festival organizer, says the festival had three main purposes. "We wanted to raise awareness for the Center for Medieval and Byzantine Studies and funds for CUA's Rare Books and Special Collections [part of the John K. Denver of Mullen Memorial Library]. And we wanted to have fun."
More than $650, raised through the festival raffle, bake and mug sales, and a free-will offering, went directly to the rare books department to be used for the preservation and conservation of medieval manuscripts that serve as important research and teaching tools for many CUA scholars and belong to the University's many lesser known treasures.
Festivalgoers were treated to a variety of events, beginning with a weapons demonstration led by Medieval and Byzantine Studies Program graduate student and historical fencing instructor Tom Leoni, and ending with a human chess game.
Among the other entertainments:
The grand finale was the human chess game, which Brasfield says, "was a great way to get everyone involved and active."
Jennifer Paxton, the Medieval Society's adviser and visiting clinical professor in the Department of History says, "Almost everything produced at Medieval Day was generated from within the CUA community: undergraduates from the Medieval Society, the Chess Club, and the English Society; graduate students from medieval and Byzantine studies, history, English, and several other programs and departments; and faculty from arts and sciences, theology, and philosophy, many of whom brought their children to learn about the Middle Ages.
"What better demonstration could we ask for that the Middle Ages are alive and well at CUA?"
Dean L.R. Poos of the School of Arts and Sciences, agrees, "The success of the Graduate Student Conference and Medieval Day underscores two things in my mind. One is the systemic support of graduate students' experience in conducting and presenting primary research to professional standards. "The other is the wonderfully innovative and lively ways that Medieval and Byzantine Studies, like so many of our other programs these days, are enriching our academic life with cocurricular engagement like the Graduate Student Conference and Medieval Day."