After four eventful days, the ICMS in Kalamazoo closed on May, 10th. Four days attending this congress in K’zoo meant, many exciting events, many interesting, friendly and intelligent people, lots of fun and less sleep. Here my unforgettable impressions of this unique happening.

Wednesday, May, 6th – Arriving in Kalamazoo

First of all: Yes, there really is a Kalamazoo . It’s situated in the state of Michigan.

My flight from Berlin to Kalamazoo had two stopovers, one in Amsterdam, were I had to wait for about five hours, and another one in Detroit. I arrived at Battle Creek International Airport on Wednesday, 6:00 p.m. Due to the time difference of 6 hours, in Germany it was already midnight. I had a really comfortable flight with an excellent service. I never thought I would feel so pretty good after an about 20-hours trip. Leaving the terminal in front of it was a cowd and some people from the media. No, they weren’t waiting to greet the Medieval Congress attendees, but we find out about it that they were waiting for an „American Idol“ participant (the american pendant to „Deutschland sucht den Superstar“) living in Kalamazoo, who was one of the last five candidates and should immediately land.

For a city like Kalamazoo with a population of 72.000 inhabitants that was a special happening. Me and some other congress attendees weren’t as much interested as our shuttle bus driver wished we would be. So he drived us directly to the Western Michigan University’s reception. Everything was well organised. (They even hung up special advices to prevent the Swine Flu). The check-in flowed smoothly. I got a room next to the reception building.

My room

I brought my baggage to the room. I read up on the room’s moderate standard in advance. That doesn’t matter to me. And in retrospect I have to confirm, you can surrender nearly every luxury for the luxury of on-campus housing. Because in addition to the nostalgic student feeling, you don’t have to waste precious congress time with an unnecessary long way home.

But there was one thing I was bothered by: The lavatory was arranged between two rooms for sharing it. Unfortunately it was impossible to lock the door from inside the lavatory and the toilet had no extra door. That means if the luck was on your side you were overtaken by your housemate. I personally advise to sing or to whistle while in the lavatory. For me it was a successful operation; I always stayed alone in the bathroom . I also advise to bring your own blanket. There are blankets in the rooms but they are very thin and used. The weather was mild but other attendees told me that they already had experienced a cold snap years ago and had frozen. K’zoo is famous for its weather fluctuation. I got another blanket on the reception. Single rooms are always twin rooms, so I had enough space. After stashing all my stuff, I mannerly put my name tag on and went back to the other building to have a look-around.

Connecting people – My first evening

I easily got into conversations with some people, though I didn’t know anyone. The name tags are a real wow. Throw a glance at the tag and you know who is standing in front of you and what university he comes from. By the way, titles get disregarded, because everyone should be coequal to each other. Such a glance revealed me that the kind man, who despairingly tried to open my water bottle, was a professor who helped me years ago with a translation. A funny situation. Now I knew his name AND his face. All people were very outgoing and friendly. To my surprise I also met immediately the professor who advised me this congress. That’s not understood on a congress with 3.000 anticipated attendees.

I was cordially affiliated by the regulars, and we decided to have a pint. And faster then I could enunciate „Kalamazoo“, I found myself in a pub in the middle of delightful people. Of course I wasn’t able to help trinking an American Budweiser. I wanted to see for myself if the rumors about the beer are true. I had good possibilities of comparison, ’cause I drank two days befor the Czech Budweiser in Berlin. My result: The same name doesn’t mean the same beer and least of all the same taste. Someone missed to acquire the international trademark, that results in two different tasting beers with the same name. It’s very easy to name the difference: The Czech Budweiser has flavor, the American hasn’t. But I was told to be careful: With the alcoholic content it is the same than with the name; it is equal. Enough spoken about beer .

I had a wonderful evening and all those people gave me the feeling beeing really arrived at the congress, mentally, too.

Another result on this evening: By sharing out the jetlag I was forgotten on a mysterious way. I was up since 27 hours and were laying in bed at midnight, exhausted but good-humored.

The Congress – Papers, Wine Hours and much more

Thursday morning: My alarm-clock should ring 6:30 a.m. like every day for the time I stood in K’zoo, but I awoke 10 minutes earlier. I paused for a moment, waiting patiently for my jetlag. But it didn’t come and I finally accepted it. I took my American breakfast at 7:15 and I totally enjoyed it .

There was some time left before my first session started at 10:00 a.m., so I took the time for reading the comprehensive schedule.

The sessions

Ca. 50 sessions were running contemporaneous in each time slot. It was very hard to decide. I would advise newcomers to choose papers with topics that are not completely new for you, especially if English is not your first language. The topics are very specific and the fundamental terms of the subject should be clear. Otherwise it could become hard to understand all the trade languages. It was my first time in an English speaking country and I needed my time to get used to it. Some speakers were easier to understand than others. I think it depends on the different dialects, too. It’s also recommendable to read the corrigendum, which contains all changes and informs about canceled events. I was especially interested in papers about German Medieval Literatur and music. But the papers bestrided various fields: romance studies, science of art, musicology, gender studies, history, religious studies, political science, archaeology e.g. Really everyone interested in the medieval research can find something adequate in the schedule.

With its about 600 sessions during three and a half day (it started on Thursday morning and closed on Sunday noon) the spectrum of the congress is amazing and unique. There were papers about (English, French, German,…) medieval classics like the Arthurian literature, Chaucer’s and Hildegard’s von Bingen works, Robin Hood, Tristan, Nibelungenlied, Willehalm; papers about modern topics with medieval background for example medieval elements in virtual games (World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls IV, Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game e.g.), medievalism in J. K. Rowling’s or Tolkien’s literature, medieval stuff in films and television; papers about astronomy and alchemy; two plenary lectures; panel discussions; differnt Workshops (reading aloud Old French and Middle French, textile workshop, Survival Tips for Digital Archivists e.g.) and much more.

After every paper there was time left for questions and a discussion guided by a presider who payed attention that it not overruns its time.

Additional to the session there were other events you could attend: Two plenary lectures, film screenings, a concert, wine hours, the Exhibits Hall e.g. They arranged a shuttle service, that could bring you to all events.

The concert

On Friday evening was a concert: „Music from the Hapsburg Court of Renaissance ‘Germany’: Sixteenth-Century Music for Tenor and Viol Consort“ by „The Catacoustic Consort“. I attended this concert in the First Baptist Church, and it was amazing.

They played some compositions of Ludwig Senfl and one of Christian Janszone Hollander. The tenor (Daniel Carberg) had an impressive voice. By chance I was in a concert with Senfl-compositions some weeks ago. It was interesting to listen to different interpretations of the same motet. I was especially impressed, that the musicians (Annalisa Pappano, Wendy Gillespie, James Lambert and Mary Burke) were playing violas da gamba with strings of bowel. Those instruments put very easy out of tune and it’s hard to tune it up fast.

The Wine Hours

Very famous was the daily and very well attended wine hour from 5 to 6 p.m.

You shouldn’t miss the chance of attending it, getting wine for free and to mingle with the most different people from everywhere. And if you have lost sight of someone during the congress, I guarantee, here you will find him . Actually all receptions with open bars (that means drinks for free) were very well frequented. I will not speculate about the reasons for it .

The inofficial singing group

I joined the singing group, that evolved over the years. Everyone who likes singing could come in and have fun. Next to the room where the singing group domiciliated, was – of course – an open bar. So everyone had the courage to sing and the atmosphere was impressive and relaxed. We had very, very much fun.

The Exhibits Hall

You shall use free time to browse the Exhibits Hall with a large number of book sellers and important publishers. It needs a very long time to visit all the booths. But it’s worth the effort. You can buy all kinds of books relating to medieval topics and they have many special offers for the congress attendees.

The dance

Never fear: No medieval songs ! They played every kind of dance music. It needed hardly 10 minutes until the dance floor was crowded out.

It made a lot of fun and we stayed til the end (about 1:30 a.m). Shortly before dance was over, I met another enjoyable and nice medievalist and so we decided to go on with talking until about 3:00 a.m.

After all it was the last chance before we all started our trip home.

One clever man gave me the advice: „Never waste too much time in K’zoo with sleeping!“ I took it to heart and had a great time on the congress: I have learned a lot, met lovely people and had incredible much fun.

(By the way, the man who gave me that advice had to battle agains the tiredness during a session and… lost. He had to go out for a coffee )

After four days we unfortunately had to made our ways home. I was very impressed to meet so many other medievalists. Hardly imaginable, that there are such a lot of them. Normally you feel like an endangered species. On the way home, you could see everywhere people reading medievalistic books at the airport: their prey from the congress. A sight to behold .