MASAL, or, I finally presented an academic paper.

This past Friday I presented my first paper at a conference.

I was *really* nervous about the whole experience. I love talking to people, I love teaching, I don't even mind making a fool of myself on occasion if a good laugh can come of it. Reading my own words and ideas to my peers, however, terrifies me.

The paper I presented was one that I had written during my last semester of grad school. The paper was from my Old English translation/seminar class, Monstrosity in the Beowulf Manuscript. I wrote on translation and interpretation of words surrounding Grendel's mother and Judith, and how the words describing these women reflected the culture and society from which they were created. I rewrote the majority of the paper for the presentation, shifting the focus from culture and social perceptions (though that was still discussed), and putting more emphasis on the translation and lexical interpretation of the words surrounding these two characters, and how neutral translations can allow for more positive readings.

I finished the edits of the paper Thursday night before the conference. I read through it three times. The first read-through was at home by myself - during which I almost fell asleep! (I was running on little sleep for a few days, so that is my excuse for nodding while reading - though perhaps I was boring myself!) The other read-throughs were at the hotel, once for time, and then once to the ladies I roomed with to see if the paper was total bunk. It went over okay with them, so I finished my edits and printed a new copy of the paper out in the morning.

The morning of the conference I sat in on the panel in which my roomies presented - they talked about a class they had taught together and various materials/texts/methods used in the class. It was extremely interesting, and they did a fabulous job! I presented my paper during the afternoon, so I naturally fretted about it all day. I was the first paper up after lunch, so I didn't eat a whole lot beforehand. Once in the session, the presider briefly introduced me, and then I got up to do my thing.

And it went pretty well!

I gave a really quick introduction to the topic - letting the audience know the paper was about the texts from the Cotton Vitellius A.xv manuscript, aka the Beowulf MS, and gave a brief introduction on who Judith is, since the Old English version of her story isn't as well known. Then I launched in. I spoke fairly well, gave a few brief asides that added a little extra to the paper, and ended up speaking for almost 25 minutes, even though I was only supposed to go 20. The presider didn't stop me, and everybody seemed pretty interested. One member of the audience, this really sweet gentleman-professor, kept nodding his head and smiling throughout my presentation. I only flubbed a couple times, losing my spot in the paper or misreading a few words, but I recovered quickly and for the most part I think I did well. I got some very good questions, which I think I answered fairly well, and the professor kept saying how much he enjoyed my paper and the points I made. I was really rather flattered - I hadn't thought it was that good, but I'm so glad it went over well. I even had one person come up to me after the paper to ask about a couple of the sources I used, since he's also interested in translation and interpretation theory/method.

I'm going to revise a few minor parts in the paper - mostly to account for the asides I made during my talk - and then I'm going to submit it to the Michigan Academician journal. I wonder if it will be considered for publication.

The entire conference was a blast. I thoroughly enjoyed the day, and even enjoyed giving my paper. I'm feeling much more confident about giving my paper in Norway in May - still a little nervous, especially since I want to rewrite/edit it - but I am really looking forward to the experience.