COLUMBUS, Miss. -- Chelsey Collins, a senior history major and medieval and Renaissance studies minor, was awarded the Abels-Johnson Award for Excellence for the best student paper at the 12th annual Longwood University Undergraduate Medieval Conference recently held in Farmville, Va.
Collins’ paper, entitled “‘A Huge Eel Encircled his Loins and Cinched Tightly’: Sexual Scenes and Social Conflict in Medieval Ireland,” examines the interaction between early medieval Irish monasteries and their surrounding lay communities through sexual encounters. The paper is part of her larger honors research project to codify medieval Irish sexual practice for clergy and laity, with the goal of eventually creating a framework for studying sexual depictions in medieval Irish sources to learn what they can tell us about cultural history.
“The award was a huge surprise because there was so much strong research presented,” said Collins about the moment her name was called at the award ceremony at the conference. “The experience was also validating in that I presented my research to strong medieval scholars who confirmed that it was significant and worth pursuing.”
The paper competition was judged by the two plenary speakers, Dr. Mark Chambers of Durham University and Dr. David Kausner of the University of Toronto, who judged the papers on the strength and clarity of the argument, the research and use of primary and secondary sources and the delivery of the paper. According to Dr. Larissa Tracy of Longwood University, co-organizer of the conference, the judges felt that Collins “excelled in all these points, especially in the innovativeness of her argument.”
“I am interested in questions like how medieval people thought about sex, why they regulated it, and – above all – what the role of sex was in defining themselves and their communities,” said Collins, describing the significance of her research. “Both humorous tales and regulatory law used sex to establish the boundary between those within the church and those outside of it. My presentation at the conference explored how blurring those lines in sexual scenes reflected social conflict. These often humorous sexual episodes are a useful window into medieval society and its structure, especially the tension between monastic and lay communities.” Collins plans to continue her research at the graduate level, contributing a new perspective to the scholarship of early Irish history.
The annual Longwood University Undergraduate Medieval Conference is open to students from across the country, drawing primarily from the Atlantic coast region and aims to showcase undergraduate student research. The Abels-Johnson Award for Excellence is a $300 monetary award named for the two plenary speakers from the first conference in 2007, Richard Abels from the U. S. Naval Academy and David F. Johnson from Florida State University. The first Abels-Johnson Award was awarded in 2013.
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April 19, 2018