2024 Annual Meeting: Today’s Livestreamed Content

2024 Annual Meeting
Livestreamed Content

If you can’t join us in person at the University of Notre Dame, please join us online for today’s live-streamed content
(times are US Eastern):

10:30 AM – noon: CARA Plenary Session and Presentation of CARA Awards

Speaker: Zrinka Stahuljak, Director, CMRS Center for Early Global Studies;

Professor of Comparative Literature & French, UCLA, “How Early Before it is Too Late? ‘Medieval’ Periodization, Epistemic Change, and the Institution”

1 – 2 PM: MAA Annual Business Meeting

Annual Reports from the Executive Director, Treasurer, CARA Chair, Graduate Student Committee Chair, and ACLS Delegrate, followed by an open question-and-answer period.

Live-streams may be accessed here:

https://medieval.nd.edu/news-events/events/medieval-academy-of-america-2024/live-streams/

Recordings will be available after the meeting.

Posted in Annual Meeting | Leave a comment

2024 Annual Meeting Livestreamed Content

2024 Annual Meeting
Livestreamed Content

The 99th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America starts now!
Join us online to watch the plenaries
(times are US Eastern):

https://medieval.nd.edu/news-events/events/medieval-academy-of-america-2024/live-streams/

Recordings will be available after the meeting.

Posted in Annual Meeting | Leave a comment

Call for Applications – Interdisciplinary Summer School 2024

Call for applications

Interdisciplinary Summer School 2024

“Bridging Archaeogenetics and Medieval Studies: Using aDNA as a source for migration, demographics, kinship and pathology”

Date: September 23-27, 2024

Venue: Berlin-Brandenburgische Akademie der Wissenschaften, Jägerstr. 22-23, 10117 Berlin (with a day trip to MPI EVA, Deutscher Platz 6, 04103 Leipzig, on 25 September)

Conveners: Center for Medieval Studies at Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities (BBAW) & Department of Archaeogenetics at Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Leipzig (MPI EVA)

Organizers: Dr. Jörg Feuchter (BBAW) and Dr. Stephan Schiffels (MPI EVA)

Application deadline: April 30, 2024

Target group: M.A. students and junior PhD/doctoral students from History, Biology, Archaeology and other Natural Sciences and Humanities

Teaching language: English

Concept: In the age of the „ancientDNA-revolution“, archaeogenetic research institutes are nowadays routinely analysing samples from all periods of the human past, not the least from medieval times. Sometimes the scientific objective of the analysis resides primarily in the realm of History/Archaeology; sometimes the questions asked are of a biological nature; in other instances there is a mix of both. A rapidly growing and highly promising field of more or less intertwined genetic, historical, and archaeological knowledge production is developing, and the Middle Ages have become relevant to Genetics, as well as vice versa. Yet, true interdisciplinary cooperation remains rare, and there is much mutual distrust, misunderstanding and lack of knowledge. The Interdisciplinary Summer School „Bridging Archaeogenetics and Medieval Studies“ will bring together students from History, Biology, Archaeology and other relevant disciplines in order to familiarize them with the use of a(ncient)DNA as a source for migration, demographics, kinship and pathology in the Middle Ages. The Summer School will provide a general introduction to the scientific methods, both in theory and practice. In addition, participants will be given the opportunity to learn about a particular ongoing research project, „Migration and Urban Demographics in the Berlin-Brandenburg Area during the High Middle Ages“, in which many among the teaching staff are involved. Participants will be able to learn how the methods are applied to a concrete case study, to discuss with scientists cooperating in an ongoing research project, and to participate in interdisciplinary exchanges around specific problems. This interaction will help to develop critical engagement with the sometimes fundamentally different general approaches of scientists and scholars in the humanities.

Fees: There is no fee for participation. However, participants must cover their own accommodation and travel expenses for travelling to and from Berlin, as well as for the day trip to Leipzig. A number of inexpensive accommodations are available at the guesthouse of Humboldt University. They can be booked through the organizers.

Application details: Your application should include the following:

  1. Letter of motivation (one page, outlining why you are interested in participating in the Summer School and what you are expecting from it)
  2. Curriculum Vitae (one page)
  3. Scan of B.A. or M.A. diploma (or equivalent)

All three elements must be merged into a single PDF document

Please let us know in your application if you are interested in residing at the guesthouse of Humboldt University during the Summer School (single bedrooms with shared bathroom facilities, cost: about 300 EUR for six nights from September 22 to 27)

Please send your application to medieval.summerschool@bbaw.de.

Preliminary Program:

Some of the topics to be taught at the Summer School:

 

Introduction to population genetics
Detecting migration and kinship through aDNA;

Introduction to the questions and methods of medieval history and to the challenges of interdisciplinary research on the Middle Ages

Introduction to the archaeology of migration, kinship and gender

Field trip to excavation site in Berlin

Detecting pathogens through aDNA

Speakers include:

Jörg Feuchter (BBAW, https://www.bbaw.de/die-akademie/mitarbeiterinnen-mitarbeiter/feuchter-joerg)

Patrick Geary (Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; https://www.ias.edu/scholars/geary)

Claudia M. Melisch (Melisch Archäologie, Berlin; https://melisch-arch.de/ueber-mich)

Michael Nothnagel (University of Cologne, https://ccg.uni-koeln.de/research/statistical-genetics-and-bioinformatics-group/group-members/prof-dr-michael-nothnagel)

Stephan Schiffels (MPI EVA; https://www.eva.mpg.de/archaeogenetics/staff/stephan-schiffels)

The Summer School will begin on September 23, 9.30 a.m. and end on September 27, 3 p.m.

Contact: medieval.summerschool@bbaw.de

Web: https://www.bbaw.de/die-akademie/mitarbeiterinnen-mitarbeiter/feuchter-joerg/summer-school

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

Women Medievalists on Medieval Women

You are invited to attend “Women Medievalists on Medieval Women,” a “state-of-the-field” symposium & reception on Wednesday, March 20, at 5:30 PM, at the Grolier Club in New York City. Sponsored by the American Trust for the British Library, the Early Book Society, and the Virginia Fox Stern Center for the History of the Book in the Renaissance, Johns Hopkins University. Free to attend—in person and livestream available.

Details and speakers’ list here.
Register here.

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

Online Lecture: Recycled Cities: Sardis and the Fortifications of Early Byzantine Anatolia

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the final lecture in our 2023–2024 lecture series.

Thursday, March 28, 2024 | 12:00 PM EDT | Zoom
Recycled Cities: Sardis and the Fortifications of Early Byzantine Anatolia
Jordan Pickett, University of Georgia

The largest standing architecture at the ruined city of Sardis is not its famous Temple of Artemis, the fourth largest Ionic temple of antiquity, but is instead the massive but little-published fortification that sits on its Acropolis. This paper delivers preliminary results from new study of the Byzantine fortifications on the Acropolis at Sardis, part of the larger Harvard-Cornell Exploration of Sardis ongoing since 1958. Composed entirely of thousands of architectural blocks and sculpture recycled from older Iron Age and Roman monuments of Sardis, our understanding of the Acropolis fortifications hinges on three questions considered here. How has the Acropolis, composed of extraordinarily friable loose conglomerate subject to erosion and earthquake, changed since Antiquity? When were the Acropolis fortifications constructed? Possibilities range from c. 550 during the reign of Justinian to as late as c. 850. And, how and by whom were the Acropolis fortifications constructed? Set at a remarkably steep elevation, the labor for transport and construction with reused materials was extraordinary. No minor monument of the “Dark Ages”, the fortifications on the Acropolis at Sardis stand as a remarkably well-preserved complex of defensive architecture that sheds light on the priorities and capacities of communities in Byzantine Anatolia.

Jordan Pickett is Assistant Professor in the Department of Classics at the University of Georgia and co-PI, with Benjamin Anderson (Cornell University), for Acropolis investigation for the Archaeological Exploration of Sardis, Turkey, under the direction of Nick Cahill (University of Wisconsin).

Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/recycled_cities

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

Opportunity for Graduate Students & ECRs: Inscriptions in a Digital Environment: An Introduction to EpiDoc for Byzantinists

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Byzantine Studies Association of North America are pleased to offer a three-part EpiDoc workshop for graduate students and early career researchers in collaboration with Martina Filosa of the University of Cologne.

Inscriptions in a Digital Environment: An Introduction to EpiDoc for Byzantinists, workshop by Martina Filosa (University of Cologne), Zoom, April 5, 12, and 26, 2024, 11:00 AM–3:00 PM EDT with a break from 12:30–1:00 PM

In this online workshop, participants will explore the use of EpiDoc, the established standard for digitally encoding ancient inscriptions, papyri, and other primary and documentary texts in TEI XML for online publication and interchange. The workshop will also introduce the participants to the EFES (EpiDoc Front-End Services) platform for viewing and publishing EpiDoc editions. The workshop will include asynchronous tutorials, real-time sessions, and guided hands-on exercises. Participants will have the opportunity to work with their own epigraphic material, broadly understood.

Registration closes Friday, March 22.

Who is eligible?

  • Graduate students and early career researchers (PhD received after April 2016) in the field of Byzantine studies.
  • All participants must be BSANA members. BSANA membership is free for graduate students and early-career contingent scholars who have earned their PhD within the last eight years and who do not hold a permanent or tenure-track appointment. If you are not already a BSANA member, please complete the BSANA Membership Form before registering for the workshop. Your membership status will be confirmed before your space in the workshop is confirmed.

For a full description of the workshop and to register your interest, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/inscriptions-in-a-digital-environment.

Contact Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

Call for Sessions: Mary Jaharis Center Sponsored Panel, 50th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference

As part of its ongoing commitment to Byzantine studies, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for Mary Jaharis Center sponsored sessions at the 50th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference to be held in New York City, October 24–27, 2024. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is April 3, 2024.

If the proposed session is accepted, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 5 session participants (presenters and chair) up to $800 maximum for scholars based in North America and up to $1400 maximum for those coming from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided.

For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/50th-bsc

Contact Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

Jobs for Medievalists

Full-Time Lecturer in Medieval and Renaissance Studies – Marco Institute, University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, invites applications for a full-time 9-month lecturer to teach interdisciplinary undergraduate courses in Medieval and Renaissance Studies (MRST) to begin August 1, 2024. Appointment to this position can initially be for up to two years, with the possibility of continued renewal based on performance and funding thereafter. The College has a promotion ladder which includes longer appointment periods. The position comes with full benefits and annual funds available to assist with research, travel, and professional development. The teaching load is two sections of one course per semester (12 hours per week), with a graduate teaching assistant. The position is 75% teaching and 25% service to the Marco Institute and MRST programs (major, minor, outreach).

PhD in any field related to Medieval and/or Renaissance Studies (e.g., History, Literature, Languages, Religious Studies, Musicology, Art History) is required by the time of appointment. Candidates must be able to demonstrate excellence in teaching at the college level, familiarity with current student-oriented pedagogy, including in a large classroom, and with the use of technology to enhance learning. The program seeks candidates with expertise in teaching an expansive global, interdisciplinary perspective in premodern studies. Review of applications will begin on March 25, 2024, and will continue until the position is filled. The University of Tennessee is seeking candidates with the ability to contribute in meaningful ways to achieving the intercultural goals of the University.

For full information, visit: https://apply.interfolio.com/142323

Posted in Jobs for Medievalists | Leave a comment

Call for Papers – Afro-Eurasian Origins of Print: A Material, Social and Theoretical History

Hosted by Susan Dackerman, Independent Scholar, and Caroline Fowler, Starr Director of the Research and Academic Program, Clark Art Institute

September 18–21, 2024, Williamstown, MA AND New Haven, CT
May 2025, South Korea

The Research and Academic Program of the Clark Art Institute is sponsoring a travelling seminar on the global origins and transmission of print. The project has the ambitious goal of re-thinking the history of pre-modern print, offering a more unified and inclusive history of the transformative technology. While often Johannes Gutenberg is heralded as the inventor of printing with movable type in Mainz, Germany in the mid 1450s, printing had been practiced in Asia (movable type and woodblock) and North Africa (woodblock) for centuries prior. Indeed, this seminar maintains that early printing in Europe should be narrated as a late stage in an inter-connected, inter-continental, inter-faith course of development rather than as an exceptional moment of discovery driven by Christian European practitioners. This seminar will work to redress the dominant western narrative of print as a European invention and proffer in its place an inclusive Afro-Eurasian account of reproductive technologies. The investigation will encompass innovations in printing text and images from before 1500 across three continents, focusing on the use of mechanical reproduction to produce multiples impressions.

We are bringing together a group of specialists of Asian, Islamic, and late-medieval European print to look closely at works on paper at institutions in the United States, Asia, and Europe. We will address critical issues around Eurocentric narratives in the history and curatorial strategies of print, creating cross-disciplinary dialogue around concepts of knowledge production, repetition, reproduction, transmission, and imprint. The seminar will benefit the participants by both expanding their familiarity, vocabulary, and understanding of print beyond their field of specialization while also offering an intellectual groundwork by which to consider re-narrating dominant histories of print, especially the prevailing European account, to include Afro-Eurasian traditions. Whereas often histories of print are siloed into geographic and chronological specialties, this series of seminars will offer participants the opportunity to work in conversation across place and time to create a more complex history of print.

PROGRAM STRUCTURE

The travelling seminar will first convene September 18–21, 2024 in Williamstown, MA and New Haven, CT to explore collections and begin establishing material and conceptual arenas of exploration. Visits to collections at the Clark Art Institute, Williams College, and Yale University will enable to group to examine examples of early European and Asian print technology. In May 2025, the Working Group will travel to South Korea for a week to visit collections, and final dates will be determined based on participants’ availability for future travel to Munich and Mainz, Germany.

The Clark Art Institute will sponsor the travel, including airfare, accommodations, and meals.

HOW TO APPLY

This program is open to all scholars across rank and specialization, from pre-doctoral scholars to tenured professors and senior curators. We will bring together a group of people across geographic specializations and career stage. Ideally, however, the candidates should be scholars of print with a focus on (or knowledge of) print materials pre-1550.

To apply, please submit the following to Susan Dackerman and Caroline Fowler at cfowler@clarkart.edu:

  • Two-page statement of interest, including a description of relevant research previously undertaken and proposed research to explore within the travelling seminars
  • A current C.V.
  • A notice of availability to travel to New England in September 2024 and to Korea in May 2025

PLEASE SUBMIT ALL MATERIAL BY APRIL 1, 2024

Posted in Call for Papers | Leave a comment

Response to Letter of Concern

To the Members of the Medieval Academy of America:

The Officers and Governance of the Medieval Academy of America have received a Letter of Concern signed by several dozen members regarding the question of remuneration for the position of Speculum Editor. We would like to share our response with you.

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

Thank you for bringing to our attention your concerns about the proposed structure of the Speculum Editor-in-Chief position — specifically, the fact that the ad specifies that the position will not be remunerated.

We would like to start by saying that we hear and understand these concerns. We hope with this message to explain why the ad was configured in this way and to outline our priorities regarding Speculum and the MAA, but also and more importantly, we want to assure you of our flexibility and willingness to reconsider the parameters of the position. We are confident that we all share the same goals: to preserve the rigor and quality of Speculum while supporting the full spectrum of MAA members and protecting the future of medieval studies.

The position description reflected the current editorial situation, which has differed from previous configurations. When the position of Editor-in-Chief was last advertised, in 2018, the ad copy specified that:

“In addition to a curriculum vitae, the cover letter should include ideas about future directions for the journal, and discussion of how s/he envisions setting up the position, either in the MAA office, now in Cambridge, MA, or by moving the operation to a university campus. If the latter, s/he will describe possible institutional support. The search committee wants to identify the best pool of candidates, and the MAA is willing to be flexible in finding ways to accommodate the various modes of professional life encountered in the searching process. However, wherever the ultimate location of the Editor, there will need to be access to a major research library and to graduate students who can be hired for assistance.”

The partnership with Catholic University came about because Katherine Jansen was selected by the search committee, and Kate was able to negotiate favorable conditions with her employer. That partnership has proven to very beneficial to the MAA – first and foremost because Kate has been a spectacular editor, but also because the financial support provided by Catholic University allowed the MAA to balance its budget for the first time in many years, and to fund a variety of programs designed to support graduate students, junior scholars, and independent scholars. The savings were not solely related to the Editor-in-Chief’s salary, but also because the partnership allowed the MAA to move from very its expensive Cambridge headquarters to smaller and less expensive space in Boston. Moreover, the fact that Kate elected to use the $100,000+/year still provided to Speculum by the MAA to support five staff members – Managing Editor, Assistant Editor, Copy Editor, Proofreader, and Administrative Assistant – meant that we were able to offer graduate students and less-senior scholars financial support and valuable experience.

Continuing to seek out an analogous partnership seemed to us (Robin, Sara, Peggy, and Lisa) to be the most prudent and beneficial course of action. But we have no wish to be inflexible. We are more than willing to have open discussion about other possible configurations with the Council, concerned members, and with prospective applicants for the position.

In your letter, you offer three suggestions for moving forward:

1. Funding for the Speculum editor’s position [should] be given priority in the next fiscal year’s budget.
2. Commensurate funds [should] be raised through a concerted campaign to sustain a salaried editor position.
3. Publication of the journal [should] be suspended until such funds are available.

Regarding the first suggestion: this is something that we are very willing to consider! The goal will be to work together to identify and (hopefully) agree on priorities, since any funds used to remunerate an Editor-in-Chief would have to be taken from somewhere (and someone) else. One possibility would be to invite prospective editors to propose a different allocation of the $100,000+ per annum that the MAA currently invests in the Speculum staff (most of whom are early-career medievalists). Reallocating the funds currently used, at the request of a former Editor-in-Chief, to pay for Speculum Board members to attend the Annual Meeting is another possibility (though we would note that junior scholars on the Board have said that help in attending the Annual Meeting was a major draw of serving).

[Sara would like to add a personal note here: in the “statement” I offered when I was nominated to be an officer, I wrote that my top concern would be to work to ensure that up-and-coming generations of medievalists will have a future in medieval studies, broadly construed. That is a priority that I will advocate for in all discussions of allocating MAA resources.]

Regarding the second suggestion: we absolutely would welcome such an initiative! We are happy to consult with the Council about making support for the publication of Speculum, up to and including the funding of a fully-paid editorship, an explicit fundraising target once the current Matching Campaign, whose goals have already been enumerated, ends in late 2024. It does not seem likely, however, that sufficient funds could be raised by January 2025, when as per Kate’s schedule the editorial transition must begin.

Regarding the third suggestion: this is not a move we are prepared to contemplate. Speculum is hugely important to all MAA members and to medievalists around the world. It allows scholars at all career levels and with a wide range of employment situations and affiliations to share their scholarship with colleagues and benefit from the highest quality editorial and peer input. It offers stellar scholarship to a wide readership (including, thanks to new initiatives, the general public). Publishing in Speculum and/or being reviewed in Speculum can be central to beginning scholars’ efforts to gain employment, to boosting junior TT scholars’ prospects for tenure, and to affirming the quality and credentials of independent scholars. We cannot justify depriving our members and the broader medievalist community of these benefits because the MAA (unfortunately, but together with almost every other academic society we have consulted) is financially and spatially unable to craft an editorial position that is equally accessible to every individual who might wish to apply.

We hope that this has reassured you of our openness and flexibility. We look forward to continuing this discussion as a Q&A agenda item at the upcoming Business Meeting at Notre Dame (Friday, 15 March, 1 PM, in the Smith Ballroom), and potentially also via remote sessions to be scheduled. There is probably no simple solution, but we think that in consultation with the Council, concerned members, and prospective editors we should be able to find a reasonable way forward.

Warm regards,

Robin Fleming, President
Sara Lipton, President-elect and Chair, Speculum Editor search committee
Peggy McCracken, First Vice President-elect and member, Speculum Editor search committee
Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment