One of the purposes of /r/AskHistorians is to connect people with academics, to expand both the number and type of interactions that occur between those who study of the past professionally and those who do the same in their spare time or those who simply want to study the past. So, thanks to the mods here, we're trying an experiment. Allow us to bring you directly into a real, live academic conference - and a really big one at that.
Every May, more than 3,000 medievalists descend on Kalamazoo, MI to attend the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies (now in its 49th year). We talk about everything related to the Middle Ages, from art and literature, to law codes and chronicles, to modern perceptions of the medieval. See the full program here. There's even a dance. Really. No, really. But the dance isn't the point right now. Stop asking.
The point is that, at an special session during this conference, on Friday May 9 from 3:30-5pm EDT, /u/haimoofauxerre (me), with some help from /u/telkanuru and /u/Mediaevumed, will be talking to a roomful of our fellow academics about you - about Reddit and specifically /r/AskHistorians. We'll be talking to our colleagues about why they should participate in this community, what the stakes are, what value it adds both to you and to them.
But to do this, we also need your help. We need your questions. Ask us about the conference or about anything related to medieval studies. So, ask away.
I'll live project the AMA for all in the room to see and crowd-source some answers. Let's see what happens.
See you all on Friday May 9 at 3:30pm EDT!
EDIT 5/8 7:10am: Please feel free to post questions now (as you've been doing) but we won't start answering until the time of the conference session, which is 3:30pm on Friday 5/9. The AMA participants and the audience will begin answering them and then /u/haimoofauxerre, /u/telkanuru, and /u/Mediaevumed (and hopefully others) will come back later that evening to answer some more. We won't be able to get to all of them but we'll do our best!
I will see if I can get some of the dance on youtube and ruin some careers :-)
This is a really fascinating idea; all the best to everyone who participates! Wish I was able to be there myself this year.
Also, out of interest: any interesting panels on medieval Islam this year?
Along with /u/itsallfolklore, I'm a little confused whether we're to ask questions here or on the 9^th. Assuming the former, here are a few I thought up:
Generalizing from my own experience, medieval studies are poorly represented in the average American high school, except maybe for an AP Euro in wealthier districts. What are your feelings about this? Do you think there's a place for medieval history in high schools, even with budget and time constraints? Would you prefer students learn the tools of the trade (analysis of primary sources, references, research, etc.) or on content (events, persons, etc.)? If the latter, would you try to give a broad overview, or delve deeper into a particular period or theme, like the early common law of England or the relative advances in the Arab World?
Are there any really obscure fields of research opening up to medievalists? What's the big controversy in your field right now?
Have you ever attended a joust? How was it?
I'm not sure these questions were appropriate, so feel free to hack away at them. Also, maybe we could have a few topics suggested, just to get the ball rolling? For instance, as a student, it seems to me that there are major differences in the study of history in high school and college; maybe there are some questions to be found there?
Does Umberto Eco ever get anything wrong? If so, any examples?
Itl be interesting to see how I function without all my precious books. Soft balls only please :)
I need to get to this next year.
Is this an actual formal event in the program? Would love to attend and hear this in person.
Are you looking for questions before or during the event?
What are the temporal and geographical boundaries of Medieval Studies, and how much have they changed over time?
How are you organising the questions? Reading them out or projecting them onto a screen so the audience can go 'Me! I know that one - gimmie the mic'?
I have a question or two but they might require rather esoteric knowledge (or only be of limited interest). While this is the worlds largest (I believe) international conference can you hazard a guess as to potential specialties? Have you had any feedback on who might attend the event?
At any rate, I hope it goes swimmingly and will conduct a number of strange rituals to ward off potential technical issues.
What a pity I am not going to this!
@LeVostreGC, who writes "Chaucer Hath a Blog," has been tweeting about Kalamazoo a bit.
Also a hilarious twitter and blog if you're familiar with Middle English.
Woo! I'll be there tomorrow afternoon!
I am so jealous you got to attend! Congratulations! One of my favorite professors of all time organized a few lectures, I hope you guys had a great time!
So many sessions to choose from! Wish I could go, this sounds awesome :)
How did the Byzantine's military change from roman times if at all?
I know this is way too late for the con, but maybe someone can answer this. I've heard that academic jobs are disappearing alarmingly fast. Is it safe to say that getting a MA and/or PhD in an interdisciplinary area like Medieval Studies would make one's job finding opportunities quite difficult? Is there less and less of a need for this sort of specialist? Is this as true outside of academia as within?
Second question! What role of technology do you see having in the study of History and Medieval Studies? What use do you see for text/data based software. Software that indexes books and allows for unique types of searches depending on the information the book is tagged with. It seems that knowing how often and under what context an author uses a specific word would be useful. No?