I had the honour of speaking at my first ever academic conference this year, on the 5th of July, at the Transitions Conference held at Corsham Court by Bath Spa University. The title of the paper I gave was ‘The role of signatures in the creation of a Protestant identity’. The paper began life as an essay written for Catherine Richardson’s final year module Writing Lives in Early Modern England here at the University of Kent.
I applied for the conference after seeing a Call for Papers on Twitter; I thought that my essay fit nicely with the theme of the conference but I was aware that as an undergraduate it was highly unlikely that I would be accepted to speak. I thought that the process of applying would provide me with some experience and I asked for feedback from the organisers to help with future applications, when I received the email confirming my acceptance I was thrilled and anxious at the same time. Before I could set to work on preparing for the conference I still had to sit my final exams and hand in another three essays to complete my final year assessments.
As the conference approached I began to re-read the essay and try to turn it into a spoken paper, which was a tricky task as I used a lot of secondary references to reinforce my argument but didn’t want to cloud my speech with other people’s words. I also looked further into the lives of the two people I used as case studies and tried to find more examples in their writing of professing their faith. I struggled with the wording of the speech and I found myself deliberating over syntax and sentence structure and it was disrupting my thought processes. I decided that I would use the images from the manuscripts in my presentation as the focal points of the presentation and challenged myself to deliver the talk without a script.
The conference itself was a brilliant occasion; Corsham Court is a beautiful setting with wonderful grounds around the main house and “the Barn” where the talks were held. I registered and met a number of the delegates first thing in the morning and I quickly relaxed into the company and into the first sessions. The first day raced by with some great papers and the two plenary talks particularly stick in my mind. Julie Sanders delivered a paper entitled ‘Making the land known: Henry IV Parts 1 and 2 and the literature of perambulation’ and Henry Woudhuysen’s paper was titled ‘Buying continental books in Renaissance England: booksellers, travellers, fairs, and catalogues’. These two talks stuck in my mind because they touched on points I wanted to make in my own talk, and I referenced them the next day when it was my turn to deliver my paper.
The dinner on the first evening was a brilliant chance to mix with PhD students, ECRs, and more established academics. I tried to take advantage of the collective knowledge by asking as many questions as possible about life in academia. The following morning I was speaking in the first session following the third plenary of the conference, Marcus Walsh. I had the honour of sharing my session with Richard Wendorf of the American Museum at Bath and he was very supportive of me in the build up to my talk.
Once I got into my talk I tried to engage with the audience as much as possible, for example I referred to some of the papers delivered on the first day and tried to draw links or highlight disparities as they arose. I had learned the important facts and figures I needed and so I was able to deliver the paper without too much trouble. I was conscious of my tone as I spoke – I had been worrying about it in the lead-up to the conference – but I think that because I was unscripted I just fell into a natural tone of conversation and it seemed to be well received.
The conference was a fantastic event to attend and I felt supported and appreciated by the other delegates throughout the two days. It was stressful as it was my first conference but everyone did their utmost to make me feel comfortable and at ease. Tracey Hill, Ian Gadd and Stephen Gregg did a fantastic job of organising the conference and I am grateful to them for giving me the chance to speak. I was inspired by the variety of the papers and encouraged by all the comments and congratulations I received. I would also like to thank the School of English here at Kent for their support, faith, and inspirational courses. I hope that this is the first of many conferences for me!
http://prezi.com/iy6_knyuktdc/the-role-of-signatures-in-the-creation-of-a-protestant-identity/