The Middle Ages mean many things to many different people. Often, it's either a real world that our favorite fantasies are built from or that fabled time of shining knights and chivalry. However, historians and period literary scholars think of the medieval days in a way that most of us don't. They consider it as a time as contradictory and complex, if not more so, than the twenty-first century.
The conference, "Meeting in the Middle: Court, Culture and Cutlery," is an event where Medieval scholars and many other specialists come to meet and swap research in the form of paper presentations and performances. The conference took place over the weekend from March 23 to 24 with programs throughout the day in the Virginia Room of Blackwell Hall on Friday and Room G12 in Chichester Science Building on Saturday.
Organized in a process Associate Professor of History Steven Isaac called "both burdensome and easy," "Meeting in the Middle" was planned a year in advance.
As explained by Assistant Professor of English Larissa Tracy, the preparations included chores such as booking rooms, catering and hotels to stop these resources from being used up first by another spring program.
Some of this was done with help from Longwood University's Conference and Scheduling and Audio-Visual staff. Some of the other work is squarely on Tracy and Isaac's heads. These included yearlong advertisement to medievalists and their students. Plenary speakers also had to be well taken care of in the large web of logistics.
Then came the papers themselves, which had to be approved before being accepted for presentation. With usually 15 to 20 abstracts, this year had a bumper crop of 30 abstracts submitted.
After a paper is looked over for the quality of its writing and research by a professor, it is submitted and competes with other papers in the submission pool. Isaac wanted it to be known that "Longwood students don't get any preferential treatment" and that the accepted students should know that, by passing, they've gotten over "an important bar." It is also very much about seeing how well Longwood students' efforts stack up against "our sister institutions."
Called by both organizing professors "the best conference to date," the sixth "Meeting in the Middle" was marked by better papers, more participation and a visit from President Patrick Finnegan on Friday evening.
Tracy and Isaac also said they owed a great deal of thanks to Dean of the Cook-Cole College of Arts and Sciences Charles Ross and Interim Vice President of Academic Affairs Ken Perkins for "generous and ongoing support."
"In addition," Tracy and Isaac said, "both our individual departments contribute not just resources, but also patience and collegiality and outright work, so as to enable us to be able to juggle our teaching responsibilities with all the hours that go into organizing this event and then shepherding it through to a successful end."
The topics "Meeting in the Middle" included were "Women and Power," "Holy Books," "Witchcraft," "Military History," "Women and Law" and "Romancing the Monster." The conference was also marked by the play, "Robin Hood and the Potter" on Wheeler Lawn on Friday. The play was organized by the Shenandoah Conservatory of Shenandoah University. The firing of a ballista further up on Wheeler Lawn on Saturday was organized by Longwood students William Cabot-Bryans and Paul Thompson. The play, "The York Crucifixion" on Saturday was the final event organized by Murray State University. Two plenary addresses were also organized, one by Dr. Bonnie Wheeler of Southern Methodist University with the discussion titled "600th Anniversary of Joan of Arc: 'Lady' Joan D'Arc and the Court of Charles VII" and one by Dr. Cliff Rogers of the United States Military Academy at West Point with
the discussion titled "The Symbolism of Edward III's Garter Insigne."
The students who were a part of the event included W. Clay Greeley of Shenandoah University, Mitchell Locklear of Coastal Carolina University, Crystal Knappenberger of Winthrop University, Paul Thompson of Longwood University, Margaret Hennessy of George Mason University, Jenny Johnstone of Radford University, Sara Briers of Radford University, Melissa Lavoy of Shenandoah University, Caden John Campbell of Sweet Briar College, Michael Joseph Tomaselli of University of North Carolina at Wilmington, William Cabot- Bryans of Longwood University Christopher Randolph Cheatham II of Longwood University, Eric Timothy Spivey of Appalachian State University, Michelle Littlejohn of Appalachian State University, David Noel of University of Mary Washington, Courtney M. Selvage of Sweet Briar College, Rose Buchanan of Appalachian State University, Danielle Bean of Assumption College, Lauren Babineau of Sweet Briar College, Austin Reid Reiter of Appalachian State University and Sally Beeson of Winthrop University. All of this combined for an amazing and worthwhile two days in the Middle Ages.
