This Is Not Serious Business: My First Paper at Kalamazoo, Part 1
This bit of catch-up news actually begins about a year ago. In fact, this story was in development over the course of last fall and winter, while I was still posting, but I was so afraid and half convinced that something would prevent it from actually going through that I decided not to mention it until after the event had taken place.
At the beginning of fall semester last year, the Call For Papers for the International Medieval Studies Congress at Kalamazoo went out. And, like every year, I ignored it. The beginning of the semester is always a busy time, and while I had declared at the previous year's Kalamazoo that I would seriously consider submitting to this one, I couldn't spare many brain cells to think about it. I didn't have a seminar paper that I'd want to present. And besides, I had decided for myself quite some time ago that I wanted my first paper at Kalamazoo to be a fun one. It's a big conference, and I hate giving papers and public speaking, so I figured it would ease the pressure on me and ease me in to academia, basically, if the first paper I gave at Kalamazoo was at a session dedicated to something not terribly serious-- something like Arthurian film, where it's okay to have fun.
In fact, since the previous year I'd been wanting specifically to do a paper on Arthurian film so that I could present the premise: "The BBC's Merlin: Not As Bad As You Think It Is." I'd seen only one paper about it at Kalamazoo-- which had surprised me a little, since it had by them finished its second season-- and that paper had kind of infuriated me by being a little bit racist, not very well researched as to the basic facts of the show's universe (No, the Great Dragon's name is not actually "Sparky"), and really condescending about the whole thing. It's one thing to acknowledge that Merlin is not a perfect show, and that yes, it is a bit silly. But that's not to say it has nothing to offer to the conversation, especially when the conversation includes equally silly things like the musical Camelot and A Kid in King Arthur's Court. I mean, really. Give Merlin credit where it's due, because it does know what it's doing. To be perfectly frank about it, I've honestly come to believe that Merlin is the best thing to happen to the Arthurian legend in 20 years, but that's perhaps another entry for another time. The point is, basically, that I really wanted to rebut that paper.
So, I sort of held on to that level of pickiness about my first Kzoo session as my excuse, up until the interdepartmental medievalist get-together, where people started discussing the CFP and how the deadline to submit abstracts for most sessions was that day or the next. I gave my excuse, but then I got home and decided that since I hadn't actually looked at the CFP at all, I might as well glance it over to confirm that there was nothing for me. Just in case.
The first session on the first page was on Arthurian film adaptation. And it was exactly what I would have wanted, had I had any kind of concrete idea for a paper, which I didn't, so that was that. For about five minutes. Then I started having ideas, and one main idea in particular, and it would be do-able, I was almost certain, and suddenly I really, really wanted to do it.
So I ran over to my friend Jill's apartment, which is conveniently located down the hall, and begged her to teach me how to write a conference abstract. I'd never done one before. She was very nice and gave me some examples and advice like, "Half the battle is having an intriguing title." She may even have read over a draft for me. I put all my other work on hold (and almost forgot to electronically submit a Latin assignment, after which I sent an embarrassing, undergrad-y apology to my Latin teacher) and worked my ass off on this abstract. I don't want to get the file out of Dropbox to check, but I feel like it ended up being somewhere between 300-500 words (Okay, I checked. It was 299.), and it took hours to do. Hours. I didn't start until around 8 p.m. Maybe later. I submitted it at the very last minute, the day of the deadline, having just written it and shown it to no one, in an email that I'm sure was entirely incorrectly addressed. But I got a very nice response that it has been received, so that was that.
For something like two months I didn't hear anything more about it. Most of my friends who had submitted had heard, so I just assumed that nothing was going to come of it, and I was pretty fine with that. But then, one day in I think November (maybe October?), I woke up to find an acceptance in my inbox. An acceptance that even seemed enthusiastic. And I proceeded to spazz out. I think I just sat there going, "Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, oh my God, I'm presenting. At Kalamazoo. I'm presenting a Kalamazoo, OH MY GOD!" over and over again.
I was presenting my first paper at Kalamazoo on how Merlin adapts elements of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Glorious or what? It was like my dream of academia. Someone was letting me do this. This was actually part of my career. That was probably the point of the entire last year when I most felt like my life was working out okay.
So that was all going on, and I DIDN'T WANT TO TELL YOU and jinx it. This has been a prelude to my next entry, which will be about the conference itself.