Textualities 2026

Hello fellow reader,

Today I am blogging about the college conference I participated in and presented. This is my reflections on the days leading up to the conference, the preparations involved, both in class, on my own and of the day. I learned of the Pecha Kucha method for the first time, I do not think many knew of this method. It consists of a presentation of 20 slides, each 20 seconds per slide and involves a different picture / pictures for all slides, less words, and a focus on talking and presenting a minor part of the thesis. I must admit, I was not anxious or stressed at first with the layout compared to my peers in class, but this drastically changed. I decided to present on the monstrous identity in the medieval text Sir Gowther. This text interests me a lot and I choose this as it was a strong candidate idea for my thesis, I soon came to realise that this too would change.

The practise classes with Dr. Etienne were quite helpful as she gave everyone individual feedback, but the fear of standing there, presenting on the day remained. I was part of the social media committee, and we made an Instagram page, to post everyone’s picture along with their title and a short synopsis of what they will be discussing. It was fun to be a part of this and to work as a class, with both the MA classes coming together to work in preparations for the day. The Pecha Kucha was difficult as sourcing images proved quite a challenge, but when I decided on the images and that I would use paintings from the Renaissance period to match with my topics, it became easier and almost enjoyable. I say almost because there was not enough time to discuss on a single topic. The text I chose is not known to most, even to my fellow MedRen peers, so I tried my best to give as many details as possible to describe the text, in doing this I was not able to fully articulate my narrative and rather focused on describing than analysing. After seeing my peers present theirs, I knew that it was too late to turn back on mine or change certain things which made me more anxious when my turn came to present. This anxiety stayed even after the conference was finished, I still worried that I did not do as well as I had hoped.

This was an experience that I am grateful to have and I wished we had more classes where we worked together, it allowed me to talk with more people, get to know my classmates better and present in front of professors and strangers outside of a classroom based setting. I can now say I had this experience in college, and I view it as a stepping stone toward defending my future PhD. Despite the difficulty it caused, there were elements I really enjoyed, and planning an event as a class was one of the most helpful and rewarding experiences.