medieval-religion: Scholarly discussions of medieval religion and culture

Dear All,

i first went to the zoo in ’69, which is to say: about three lifetimes ago.

the conference itself i remember as being, well, “small” --virtually
everything was, if dim memory serves, in Valley III (though there may have
been some odd sessions held in I & II, i suppose) --anyway, it was *tiny,* by
the standards of the Second Millennium.

one of my professors at Vanderbilt (Larry Crist) had been the Precipitating
Factor in suggesting the conference to me a few years before, so one or two of
the sessions i went to were sponsored by the “Societé Roncesvals,” which
turned out to be a small and tightly-knit group of Old French scholars, all of
whom (only about a dozen) obviously knew each other quite well and thoroughly
enjoyed the opportunity to see their collegues each year, bounce more-or-less
formal papers off them and generally exchange ideas (and, though i wasn’t
party to it, no doubt other kinds of social interactions).

imHo, this Model was what Early K’zoo Was All About: one has the opportunity
to meet one’s collegues, talk Shop (in the case of the O.F. Elite, a *tiny*
fraternity/sorority of scholars) in the most Essoteric Fashion imaginable,
touch base with increasingly Dear Friends, take the Measure of Time and,
generally, Recharge one’s Academic & Spiritual Batteries.

and, as a extra added attraction, one also had the opportunity to persue other
interests, discover new ones, and meet new people in the process.

best i could make out, *THAT’S* what K’zoo was then; and *THAT’S* what
it *still* is, for a great many of us Old Timers, and, also, perhaps, for an
ever-increasing number of our younger collegues.

i think.

if it ain’t, well, that’s what it sureashell *should* be.

i didn’t make it back until 1980, by which time i had transmogrified myself
from a working akademic into a hand-tools-only cabinetmaker into a Book
Dealer, and i found that i could combine Avocation (somewhat necessary for
regular mealing) and Vocation by setting up @ the Zoo, flogging my Paper Goods
to all the Fishes there who came past my stall.

this worked out pretty good, and i did that Gig for the next 21 year or so
(until a coupla years ago, when i had the Good Sense to give that game up).

from this perspective of experience, then, i can definitely say that somewhere
in the mid-80s the conference Changed.

"It Got Too Big" doesn't quite cover it all --is a necessary but hardly a
sufficient description for a rather complex historical phenomenon.

by doubling in size within the space of a decade the congress spun rather
dramatically out of control --the contrifugal forces powered by the influx of
so many [esp. new] people just overwhelmed the more traditional centripetal
ones of "core communities" which had, until then, held sway and, for many
participants, dominated the Conference Experience.

this state of affairs has, somewhat, been redressed in recent years, as folks
found new ways to get together, get their own individual, more or less
ideosyncratic interests and needs met, within the context of the much larger
conference.

i believe that *this* is the key to the continued sucess of the conference:
on-going (year after year), "core" sessions which are defined by individual
core interests and which tend to "focus" the conference experience, within the
broader, more varied, serendipitous Vastness of the Greater Conference.

it is in this context that i am pleased to draw your collective attentions to
a session at this year's Zoo which promises to be a pretty damned good one (he
says, modestly), under the sponsorship of a "new" and (i hope, on-going)
Institutional Umbrella, "The Friends of Chartres at Kalamazoo" : 

Session 101: Schneider 1120

_Chartres: New Approaches to Old Problems_

Sponsor: The Friends of Chartres at Kalamazoo

Presider: Margot Fassler, Yale Univ. 

"Chartres Cathedral as "The House of the Virgin"
Jim Bugslag, Univ. of Manitoba

"Iconographical Implications of the Virgin at Chartres: The Evidence of the
Pilgrim Badges"
Pippin Michelli, Ariadne.org


i have it on Good Authority that the scheduled third session on a Particularly
Dreary Prosopographical subject has been, mercifully, canceled and will be
replaced by a Scintillating Discussion of the Life of St. Aignan by a Very
Famous & Particularly Learned East Coast Scholar who has just completed an
important book on a Chartres Subject.

i'll take her place in the chair.

if all goes well, the FoC @ K'zoo will have a couple of sessions next year on
interdisciplinary topics, but all focused on various aspects of Things
Chartraines.

hope to see you all there.

best from here,

christopher

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