Call for nominations: CARA Executive Committee

The Medieval Academy of America’s Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA) invites nominations to fill an upcoming vacancy on its Executive Committee. With a special focus upon teaching at all levels, CARA strives to assist institutions and individual medievalists in meeting the challenges that face medieval studies in the classroom, the library, and other institutional settings locally and nationally. It also supports those who work to develop special projects and programs of instruction, local and regional networks of medievalists, and centers of research and institutions in medieval studies, working in collaboration with the Academy’s K-12 Committee as well as organizations such as TEAMS (the Teaching Association for Medieval Studies).

Members of the Executive Committee serve four-year terms; in addition to working with the CARA Chair on programming, outreach, and curricular initiatives, each member serves on two of CARA’s four subcommittees responsible for the CARA Teaching Award, the CARA Robert Kendrick Service Prize, the CARA Regional Conference Grant, and the MAA-CARA Graduate Student Summer Scholarships. Members of the CARA Executive Committee also are eligible to serve as CARA’s Director of Conference Programs, responsible for organizing CARA sessions at the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies as well as the CARA plenary at the annual Medieval Academy meeting and the annual CARA meeting.

Service on the CARA Executive Committee is open to all members in good standing of the Medieval Academy of America, who may nominate themselves or be nominated by another individual. Nominations should include the following:

  1. Name of nominee;
  2. Nominee’s institutional or professional affiliation (including that of independent scholar);
  3. A brief (c. 250-word) statement indicating the nominee’s qualifications for Executive Committee service, including their contributions to the areas of teaching, center or program administration, and/or professional collaboration and development in the field of Medieval Studies.

In accordance with CARA’s Policies and Procedures, nominations will be accepted until 1 November 2023 and reviewed thereafter by the CARA Executive Committee, which will forward its recommended candidate for approval by the Medieval Academy’s Council. The term of service for new members will begin at the conclusion of CARA’s annual meeting at the University of Notre Dame in March 2024. Please send nominations, as well as any questions or requests for further information, to the CARA Chair, Sean Gilsdorf (gilsdorf@fas.harvard.edu).

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Getty Graduate Internship

Dear Colleagues,

We are looking forward to the 2024-2025 graduate intern year in the Manuscripts Department at the J. Paul Getty Museum. I am writing to you in the hopes that you will encourage applications from graduate students whom you might know.

The Manuscripts Department intern will be involved with the study and presentation of one of the foremost collections of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts in the country. The intern will become familiar with the permanent collection by undertaking research-oriented projects and will work in a collaborative environment, including departments across the museum. The intern will have the opportunity to work with curators on a future exhibition for the department, which may include concept development, object selection, label writing, and display planning. We welcome an intern who will be eager to develop exhibitions projects that are vital and relevant to modern, diverse audiences, especially ones that engage with our ongoing DEAI work both in and outside of the galleries. The successful candidate will have a proven academic record in medieval art history, with preference for a background in manuscripts, and will also demonstrate how this internship will benefit the individual’s development in the field of museum curation. We have generally selected students who have completed their dissertation research, but the department has had several excellent interns at the M.A. level. We give all qualified applications careful consideration.

Applications are due November 1, 2023. Applicants should visit:

https://www.getty.edu/projects/graduate-internships/

Many thanks for your help.

Regards,

Beth
Elizabeth Morrison, PhD
Senior Curator of Manuscripts
J. Paul Getty Museum

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Race & Gender in the Global Middle Ages Working Group

Friday, September 22 at 12pm EST 

Craig Perry, Assistant Professor of Middle Eastern Studies and Jewish Studies
Emory University

“Everyday Human Trafficking: Hemispheric Reach, Local Intensity”

Abstract: This chapter mines the geniza corpus to make two arguments about the medieval slave trade. First, the trade in slaves was decentralized: individual buyers organized the transregional trafficking of individuals as one part of a larger mixed cargo of commodities, and traded within their own personal mercantile and family networks. I contend that this decentralized trade was a primary method of human trafficking that historians have overlooked. A medieval Middle Passage never existed; rather, epochal warfare and famine caused temporary pulses in the supply of slaves. Second, the center of gravity of the slave trade in Egypt was local, not transregional. Geniza and other contemporaneous sources show that many enslaved people changed owners several times during their lives and that sale was only one method by which Jews transferred enslaved property. Wedding dowries, gifts, and bequests were primary methods that households used to transfer enslaved people as both laborers and inter-generational wealth. Two additional claims emerge from these arguments. Though the slave trade to Egypt was transregional and included enslaved people from as far afield as India and Byzantium, the most intensively exploited regions for slave imports were Nubia and greater northeast Africa. A close reading of geniza documents alongside rabbinic writings also demonstrates the contingencies and ambiguities of racialization in the Middle Ages. All non-Muslim people outside Islamic territories were legally enslaveable. But Jewish sources reveal how Egyptians began to code “Black”-skinned people as “slaves” in their epistolary exchanges even though “Black” was not yet used as one of the many long-standing ethnic categories that scribes were required to note in bills of sale, such as Nubian, Byzantine, Indian, and Abyssinian.

Responder: Dr. Elizabeth Urban, West Chester University

Register at:
https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/raceandgenderglobalmiddleages/

Friday, October 20 at 12pm EST 

Felege-Selam Solomon Yirga, Assistant Professor of History
University of Tennessee, Knoxville

“A Roman in Islamic Egypt: Memory and Identity in the Chronicle of John of Nikiu”

The Chronicle of John of Nikiu, written in Coptic in the 7th century but surviving only in the form of a 17th-century Ge’ez translation of an Arabic intermediary, is often treated as an expression of an Egyptian identity rooted in miaphysite Christianity and some degree of antipathy towards and alienation from the Roman state. These readings are informed by a preconceived notion that there was a great degree of continuity between the Coptic church of the Early Islamic period and the Alexandrian church of the Roman empire, and a tacit belief that the Council of Chalcedon created an ideological rift between Alexandria and Constantinople. In this chapter, which will appear in my forthcoming book on the Chronicle, I argue that John of Nikiu’s text in fact reveals a historian who seemed to conceive of the historical Egypt as a core territory of the Roman empire by virtue of the province’s role in Christian history. Furthermore, he seems to view himself, and the Christians of Egypt, as in some way inextricably linked, even tacitly hinting that, should the government and church in Constantinople adopt an anti-Chalcedonian position, the Arab invasion of Egypt could be undone. The implication of this conclusion not only effects our understanding of the emergence of a distinct Coptic identity, but also challenges teleological notions of the inevitability of the long-term presence of Islamic hegemony over formerly Roman lands, which often pervade Islamic narrative sources, and which tend to inform modern scholarship on the subject.

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Early Modern Digital Itineraries: Call for Participants in NEH Workshops

I am excited to share that The Early Modern Digital Itineraries (EmDigIt) Project: Workshops for Data-Driven Approaches to Premodern Travel has received the support of an NEH Digital Humanities Advancement grant. The EmDigIt Project advances new collaborative and data-driven approaches to premodern travel.  We will be hosting three (3) virtual workshops on Zoom over the course of spring 2024 as well as an in-person conference in the Washington D.C. area.

We seek interested participants at work on premodern travel studies and with an interest in data-driven approaches. Researchers of any institutional affiliation or career stage (including current PhD students) are encouraged to apply. Prior digital humanities experience or involvement with spatial historical projects is a plus, but not required. Participants will receive a stipend towards lodging and travel for the August 2024 in-person one-day conference hosted at the Roy Rosenzweig Center for History and New Media at George Mason University.

Find out more at the project website: https://emdigit.org

The call for application is now open and available until October 1, 2023.
 If I might ask a favor, I would be much obliged if you could help me to distribute this e-mail and/or the attached flyers widely.

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Jobs For Medievalists

Assistant Professor – Medieval Latin Studies and Culture 1100-1300

Date Posted: 09/01/2023
Closing Date: 10/06/2023, 11:59PM ET
Req ID: 33377
Job Category: Faculty – Tenure Stream (continuing)
Faculty/Division: Faculty of Arts & Science
Department: Centre for Medieval Studies
Campus: St. George (Downtown Toronto)

Description

The Centre for Medieval Studies (CMS) in the Faculty of Arts and Science at the University of Toronto invites applications for a full-time tenure-stream position in Medieval Latin Studies and Culture from 1100 to 1300. The appointment will be at the rank of Assistant Professor, with an expected start date of July 1, 2024.

Candidates must have earned a PhD degree in Medieval Studies or a related area by the time of appointment, or shortly thereafter, with a demonstrated record of excellence in research and teaching. We seek candidates whose research and teaching interests complement and enhance our existing departmental strengths.

The position comes with teaching and service allocated to the Undergraduate Program in Mediaeval Studies at Saint Michael’s College (SMC).

The Centre for Medieval Studies is the leading research center in North America dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of the languages and cultures that flourished during the Middle Ages. The Centre consists of a student body of approximately 60 students, enrolled in the Master of Arts, the Doctor of Philosophy and several Collaborative Specializations, and an equal number of distinguished faculty, most of whom are cross-appointed with various departments. The Centre for Medieval Studies offers opportunities for both graduate-level teaching and, thanks to its close collaboration with the program in Mediaeval Studies at Saint Michael’s College, for undergraduate-level teaching and supervision.  As one of the leading scholars in the field, the successful candidate will participate actively within both of these programs and help to promote their collaboration and a consistency across the University of Toronto’s medieval studies curriculum on a global scale. The successful candidate will also have the opportunity to participate in and enhance established research-driven initiatives, such as the publication series Toronto Medieval Latin Texts, the Toronto Medieval Texts and Translations, the Journal of Medieval Studies, the SMC One Boyle Seminar in Scripts and Stories, or The Other Sister research group.

In terms of graduate teaching, the successful candidate will be expected to contribute substantially to the Medieval Latin program, which is the program of reference in the field in North America and comprises four levels of instruction (Medieval Latin I and II, advanced seminars, and N/CR summer courses for beginners), as well as to the area of Manuscript Studies and Textual Cultures (Paleography, Codicology, Diplomatics, and topic-focused courses). In terms of undergraduate teaching, the successful candidate will be expected to develop and contribute foundational and upper-level courses in the undergraduate program in Mediaeval Studies at Saint Michael’s College, as well as to supervise senior essays and research-focussed student initiatives. In terms of research, the successful candidate will be expected to pursue innovative and independent research at the highest international level and to establish an outstanding, competitive, and externally funded research program in the areas of Medieval Latin Studies and Manuscript Studies and Textual Cultures. The successful candidate will also be expected to contribute to the highly interdisciplinary environment of CMS and SMC, especially in the field of social and intellectual history (e.g., history of education, medicine, preaching, or Mediterranean/global studies).

Candidates must provide evidence of research excellence which can be demonstrated by a record of publications in top-ranked and field-relevant journals or forthcoming publications meeting high international standards, the submitted research statement, presentations at significant conferences, awards and accolades, and strong endorsements from referees of high standing.

Evidence of excellence in teaching will be provided through teaching accomplishments, the teaching dossier (with required materials outlined below) submitted as part of the application, as well as strong letters of reference. 

Salary will be commensurate with qualifications and experience. 

All qualified candidates are invited to apply online by clicking the link below. Applicants must submit a cover letter; a current curriculum vitae; a research statement outlining current and future research interests; a recent writing sample; and a teaching dossier to include a strong teaching statement, sample course materials, and teaching evaluations. 

Applicants must provide the name and contact information of three references. The University of Toronto’s recruiting tool will automatically solicit and collect letters of reference from each after an application is submitted (this happens overnight). Applicants remain responsible for ensuring that references submit letters (on letterhead, dated and signed) by the closing date. More details on the automation reference letter collection, including timelines, are available in the candidate FAQ.

Submission guidelines can be found at http://uoft.me/how-to-apply. Your CV and cover letter should be uploaded into the dedicated fields. Please combine additional application materials into one or two files in PDF/MS Word format. If you have any questions about this position, please contact Prof. Elisa Brilli (Centre for Medieval Studies, Director) at director.medieval@utoronto.ca.

All application materials, including reference letters, must be received by October 6, 2023.

All qualified candidates are encouraged to apply; however, Canadians and permanent residents will be given priority.

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MAA News – Our Centennial is Coming!

Dear Colleagues,

I hope you all had a productive and relaxing summer!

You likely know by now that the Medieval Academy of America will celebrate its centennial in 2025. We have been thinking about this important milestone for several years, and we have several initiatives in the works:

1) Annual Meeting: Our 100th Annual Meeting will take place in Cambridge, Massachusetts on the campus of Harvard University, co-hosted by a consortium of Boston-area institutions. Mark your calendars for 20-23 March 2025, and join us for this very special Annual Meeting! The call for papers will be posted in early 2024, and more information about special events, exhibits, and funding opportunities associated with the meeting will be available soon.

2) Publications: Special issues of Speculum will commemorate the MAA’s Centennial (2025) and the journal’s 100th volume (2026).

3) Public Programming: Thanks to the leadership of former MAA President Thomas E. Dale and the Centennial Implementation Committee, we are very pleased to announce funding for Centennial Grants of up to $5,000 each supporting the planning and implementation of local events and projects celebrating and promoting medieval studies in education and the arts. Click here for more information and to apply!

Our Centennial presents us with important opportunities to critically engage with our past, consider our present, and imagine our future. We hope you will join us!

– Lisa

Lisa Fagin Davis

Executive Director

Medieval Academy of America

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MAA News – Call for Publication Prize Submissions

The Medieval Academy of America invites submissions for the following prizes to be awarded at the 2024 MAA Annual Meeting. The Medieval Academy warmly encourages the nomination of publications written by scholars working beyond the tenure track as well as those written by faculty. Unless otherwise indicated, submissions are to be made by the publisher. If your project, monograph, or article is eligible, please contact your publisher and ask them to nominate your work. Submission instructions vary, but all dossiers must complete by 15 October 2023.

PLEASE NOTE: because of the ongoing MAA office closure, PDF review copies of nominated books may be submitted instead of hardcopies (PDFs should be emailed to the Executive Director). In addition, the residency restrictions limiting eligibility for some book prizes to residents of North America have been lifted.

John Nicholas Brown Prize
Awarded to a first monograph of outstanding quality in the field of medieval studies.

Article Prize in Critical Race Studies
Awarded annually to an article in the field of medieval studies that explores questions of race and the medieval world, and which is judged by the selection committee to be of outstanding quality.

Digital Humanities Prize
Awarded to an outstanding digital research project or resource in the field of medieval studies.

Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize
Awarded to a first article of outstanding quality in the field of medieval studies.

Karen Gould Prize
Awarded to a monograph of outstanding quality in medieval art history.

Monica H. Green Prize
Awarded to an exceptional project that demonstrates the value of medieval studies in our present day.

Haskins Medal
Awarded to a distinguished monograph in the field of medieval studies.

Jerome Singerman Prize
Awarded to a meritorious second monograph in the field of medieval studies.

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MAA News – Fellows Research Awards

We are very pleased to announce the inaugural Fellows Research Awards. Supported entirely by donations from the Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America, the Fellows Fund will support two annual awards for members of the Medieval Academy who do not have access to research funding. Two awards of $5,000 will be granted annually to Ph.D. candidates and/or non-tenure-track scholars to support research in medieval studies. The awards will help fund travel and/or access expenses to consult original sources, archives, manuscripts, works of art, or monuments in situ. Applicants must be members of the Medieval Academy of America by Sept. 15 of the year in which they apply.

To apply for a Fellows Research Award, submit the application form and attachment by October 1, 2023. Awards will be announced at the 2024 Medieval Academy annual meeting. Click here for more information and to apply.

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MAA News – Upcoming Deadlines

The Medieval Academy of America invites applications for the following grants. Please note that applicants must be members in good standing as of September 15 in order to be eligible for Medieval Academy awards.

Schallek Fellowship
The Schallek Fellowship provides a one-year grant of $30,000 to support Ph.D. dissertation research in any relevant discipline dealing with late-medieval Britain (ca. 1350-1500). (Deadline 15 October 2023)

Travel Grants
The Medieval Academy provides travel grants to help Academy members who hold doctorates but are not in full-time faculty positions, or are contingent faculty without access to institutional funding, attend conferences to present their work. (Deadline 1 November 2023 for meetings to be held between 16 February and 31 August 2024)

MAA/CARA Conference Grant
The MAA/CARA Conference Grant for Regional Associations and Programs awards $1,000 to help support a regional or consortial conference taking place in 2024. (Deadline 15 October 2023)

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MAA News – Good News From Our Members

Nancy L. Wicker (Univ. of Mississippi) has been awarded a Solmsen Fellowship to carry out research on Viking-Age art at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin for the academic year 2023–2024.

Several MAA members have recently been awarded grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities:

Jennifer Feltman (Univ. of Alabama), “Notre Dame in Color: Interpreting the Layers of Polychromy on the Sculptures of the Cathedral of Paris Using 3D Modeling”

Carrie Beneš (New College of Florida), Laura Ingallinella (University of Toronto), Amanda Madden (Rosenzweig Center, GMU), Laura Morreale, “La sfera (The Globe): A Late Medieval World of Merchants, Maps, and Manuscripts”

Congratulations! If you have good news to share, please send it to Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis.

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