Middle Ages for Educators (MAFE) is sponsoring a bracketed Sweet 16 competition

Posted on September 13, 2024 by Chris

With the support of a Centennial Grant from the Medieval Academy of America, the Princeton-based Middle Ages for Educators (MAFE) is sponsoring a bracketed Sweet16 competition to encourage medievalists to create open access resources (OARs) for inclusion and publication on the site.

All Sweet 16 OAR submissions will be assessed by a panel of judges who will choose the top 16 OARs, which will then be entered into a public-facing competition. Voting for the best OAR will take place on social media, with the winner of each pairing advancing to the next round. The top 16 submissions will receive a cash prize, and the 4 semi-finalists will receive an additional cash prize and up to $1000 travel stipend to present their work, along with the judges, at a round-table at the MAA’s Centennial meeting in Boston in March 2025. The overall winner of the Sweet 16 competition will receive an additional prize of $1,000. Anyone may enter the competition.

Guidelines for creating and submitting OARs are found on the Sweet 16 page of the MAFE site, and the judging rubrics included. All submissions are due by October 1, 2024.

We hope this competition will be an exciting opportunity for the medievalists in the MAA to learn about MAFE, to consider new ways to disseminate knowledge, and to represent all that MAA members have to offer to the thousands of people who use MAFE every year.

Please feel free to send any questions or concerns you might have to the MAFE Project Coordinator) at lmorreale3@gmail.com.

The MAFE Team:
Merle Eisenberg (Oklahoma State University)
David Gyllenhaal (Princeton University)
Sara McDougall (CUNY, John Jay)
Laura Morreale (Independent Scholar)
Helmut Reimitz (Princeton University),
Jeremy Stitts (Princeton University),
Jack Tannous (Princeton University)

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Online Lecture: Sing to Him a New Song! Liturgical Hymns from Medieval Nubia

Posted on September 9, 2024 by Chris

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University are pleased to announce the first lecture in the 2024–2025 East of Byzantium lecture series.

Friday, September 27, 2024 | 12:00 PM (EDT, UTC -4) | Zoom
Sing to Him a New Song! Liturgical Hymns from Medieval Nubia
Agata Deptuła, University of Warsaw

Three Nubian kingdoms (Nobadia, Makuria, and Alwa), located in the Middle Nile Valley, became part of the Christian oikumene in the middle of the sixth century, receiving from Byzantium not only the faith, but also its setting, including Greek as the principal liturgical language and a set of texts used during liturgical celebrations. Singing was an integral and significant component of the Eastern Church ritual, and it is not surprising that hymns also gained popularity in Nubia.

Texts at our disposal are mostly fragmentary, preserved in the form of parts of manuscript leaves, faded wooden tablets, or inscriptions written on the walls of cult buildings. Despite their fragmentary state, Nubian hymns exhibit a richness of forms and themes. There are troparia belonging to the oldest layer of Greek liturgical poetry and witnesses of the original Greek versions of the hymns by Severus of Antioch, known so far only through their Syriac translations. Longer compositions are also found, with the canon—a structured liturgical hymn composed of nine odes related to the nine biblical canticles—seemingly enjoying particular popularity.

These compositions span the spectrum of feast days as well as fixed celebrations, and also praise saints, especially Archangel Michael and Theotokos. Attestations of the usage of individual hymn verses in inscriptions left by visitors in churches indicate that singing to praise the Lord was widespread among the faithful. As a result, hymns are the largest and richest group of liturgica known from the area, shedding light on local liturgical practices. Additionally, the fact that some hymns are not preserved in their original form outside Nubia demonstrates that the material can contribute to unraveling the development of hymnography in Eastern Christianity at large.

Agata Deptuła is an archaeologist at the Polish Centre of Mediterranean Archaeology of the University of Warsaw, where she specializes in medieval Nubia and epigraphy. With over a decade of fieldwork experience in Sudan on sites such as Banganarti and Old Dongola, she focuses primarily on epigraphy and texts with liturgical significance. Her passion lies in deciphering inscriptions, particularly those that reveal the cultural and religious aspects of medieval Nubian societies. She is the author of the book Liturgical Poetry in Christian Nubia: The Evidence of the Wall Inscriptions in the Lower Church at Banganarti, which explores the hymnographic tradition and liturgical aspects of Nubian history.

Advance registration required. Register: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/

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

An East of Byzantium lecture. EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center that explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

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Call for Papers – More than The Green Knight: Exploring the Ongoing Tradition of Adapting and Appropriating Sir Gawain and the Green Knight (hybrid)

Posted on September 9, 2024 by Chris

Call for Papers Sponsored by Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture; International Arthurian Society, North American Branch (IAS/NAB); International Pearl-Poet Society

Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Joseph M. Sullivan, and Amber Dunai

60th International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
Hybrid event: Thursday, 8 May, through Saturday, 10 May, 2025

Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2024

Session Information

Released in 2021, David Lowery’s film The Green Knight thrust the medieval romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight into the spotlight like never before and attracted the attention of viewers and critics across the globe. Scholars of medieval literature and film have also been inspired by the film’s release, and there is now a flourishing field of The Green Knight Studies as displayed in articles, books, conferences, essays, special issues, and themed sessions. However, all of this attention on Lowery’s  work creates a limited understanding of the full post-medieval afterlife of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.

We propose this session as a counter to the flurry of attention on Lowery’s work. The Green Knight is merely one example of a much wider array of adaptations of the story that began in the sixteenth century with The Greene Knight and continues to this day with comics, drama, fiction, film, games, illustration, music, opera, picture books, radio broadcasts, and television programming. Beyond these, aspects of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight have been appropriated by many creative artists and integrated into their own creations in various media. Collectively, these adaptations and appropriations make up a rich textual tradition for Sir Gawain and the Green Knight that now extends over five centuries and deserves more notice.

Our intent in this session is twofold:

  • First, to uncover what we lose by focusing on Lowery’s film outside of the larger context of adaptation and appropriations of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
  • Second, to highlight what can be added to the larger fields of Arthurian Studies and Pearl-Poet Studies by widening our view of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight to include further or other adaptations and appropriations of the text in our research and teaching.

Submissions should address at least one (if not both) of the following questions:

  • What other adaptations and appropriations do we miss by focusing on Lowery’s film?
  • What do we gain (for the disciple, our students, and/or ourselves) when we look beyond it?

Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at MedievalinPopularCulture@gmail.com.

Submissions will also be considered as part of an essay collection on the theme.

Submission Information

The process for proposing contributions to sessions of papers, roundtables and poster sessions for the International Congress on Medieval Studies uses an online submission system powered by Confex. Be advised that submissions cannot be accepted through email. Rather, access the direct link in Confex to our session at https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/paper/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=6431. You can also view the full Call for Papers list at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call.

Within Confex, proposals to sessions of papers, poster sessions and roundtables require the author’s name, affiliation and contact information; an abstract (300 words) for consideration by session organizer(s); and a short description (50 words) that may be made public. Proposals to sessions of papers and poster sessions also require a title for the submission (contributions to roundtables are untitled).

Proposers of papers or contributions to roundtables for hybrid sessions should indicate in their abstracts whether they intend to present in person or virtually.

If you need help with your submissions, the Congress offers some resources at the Participating in the Congress page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/participating-congress. Click to open the section labeled “Propose a Paper” and scroll down for the Quick Guide handouts.

Be advised of the following policies for participating in the Congress:

You are invited to propose one paper (as a sole author or as a co-author) for one session of papers. You may propose a paper for a sponsored or special session or for the general sessions, but not both. You may propose an unlimited number of contributions to roundtables and poster sessions, but you will not be scheduled to actively participate (as paper presenter, roundtable discussant, poster author, presider, respondent, workshop leader, demonstrator or performer) in more than three sessions.

Further details on the Congress’s Policies can be found at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/policies-guidelines.

A reminder: Presenters accepted to the Congress must register for the full event. The registration fee is the same for on-site and virtual participants. For planning, the cost for the previous year’s event is posted at the Congress’s Registration page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration.

If necessary, the Medieval Institute and Richard Rawlinson Center at Western Michigan University offer limited funding to presenters. These include both subsidized registration grants and travel awards. Please see the Awards page at the Congress site for details at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.

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Call for Papers – Expanding Our View of Sherwood: Exploring the Matter of the Greenwood in Comics (A Roundtable) (virtual)

Posted on September 9, 2024 by Chris

Expanding Our View of Sherwood: Exploring the Matter of the Greenwood in Comics (A Roundtable) (virtual)

Sponsored by Medieval Comics Project and International Association for Robin Hood Studies (IARHS)

Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa and Carl B. Sell
60th International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
Hybrid event: Thursday, 8 May, through Saturday, 10 May, 2025
Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2024

Session Information

According to a recent search of the Grand Comics Database, creators of comic books and graphic novels have produced approximately five thousand comics directly based on or inspired by the Robin Hood tradition. These comics span over one hundred years and come from at least ten countries; however, the true scope of Hood’s influence on the medium appears much larger. A variety of archers, both heroes and villains, also feature within the pages of comics, and some, such as DC Comics’s Green Arrow, have even made the transition to the screen. In addition, Hood and his fellows have also frequented cartoons, comic strips, and manga, although their adventures there remain largely uncatalogued.

Of this vast array of comics and related media, relatively little of the corpus seems known to enthusiasts of the Matter of the Greenwood. Although Robin Hood scholars (working since the 1990s) have started to share some comics, much work still remains to be done to more fully assess the world of Sherwood Forest depicted in their panels. Therefore, in this co-sponsored session, we hope to create a deeper connection between Robin Hood Studies and Comics Studies to highlight items from this rich corpus and provide ideas and reflections on how to find, access, and employ Robin-Hood-themed comics in our classrooms and research.

Applicants to the roundtable are invited to revise their work for publication in a special issue of  the open-access journal The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies.

Thank you for your interest in our session. Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at Comics.Get.Medieval@gmail.com.

Submission Information

The process for proposing contributions to sessions of papers, roundtables and poster sessions for the International Congress on Medieval Studies uses an online submission system powered by Confex. Be advised that submissions cannot be accepted through email. Rather, access the direct link in Confex to our session at https://icms.confex.com/icms/2025/round/papers/index.cgi?sessionid=5826. You can also view the full Call for Papers list at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/call.

Within Confex, proposals to sessions of papers, poster sessions and roundtables require the author’s name, affiliation and contact information; an abstract (300 words) for consideration by session organizer(s); and a short description (50 words) that may be made public. Proposals to sessions of papers and poster sessions also require a title for the submission (contributions to roundtables are untitled).

Proposers of papers or contributions to roundtables for hybrid sessions should indicate in their abstracts whether they intend to present in person or virtually.

If you need help with your submissions, the Congress offers some resources at the Participating in the Congress page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/participating-congress. Click to open the section labeled “Propose a Paper” and scroll down for the Quick Guide handouts.

Be advised of the following policies for participating in the Congress:

You are invited to propose one paper (as a sole author or as a co-author) for one session of papers. You may propose a paper for a sponsored or special session or for the general sessions, but not both. You may propose an unlimited number of contributions to roundtables and poster sessions, but you will not be scheduled to actively participate (as paper presenter, roundtable discussant, poster author, presider, respondent, workshop leader, demonstrator or performer) in more than three sessions.

Further details on the Congress’s Policies can be found at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/policies-guidelines.

A reminder: Presenters accepted to the Congress must register for the full event. The registration fee is the same for on-site and virtual participants. For planning, the cost for the previous year’s event is posted at the Congress’s Registration page at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/registration.

If necessary, the Medieval Institute and Richard Rawlinson Center at Western Michigan University offer limited funding to presenters. These include both subsidized registration grants and travel awards. Please see the Awards page at the Congress site for details at https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress/awards.

Resources

For ideas and support, please see the following resources:

Torregrossa, Michael A. “The Matter of the Greenwood in Recent Comics.” Into a BrAIve New World: 14th Biennial Conference of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies, Missouri Valley College, Marshall, MO, 20 October 2023. Hybrid event. Academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/108398145/2023_The_Matter_of_the_Greenwood_in_Recent_Comics_.

– – -. “Medieval Comics Project Bibliographies: Matter of the Greenwood (Robin Hood).” Medieval Comics Project Bibliographies, https://tinyurl.com/MedievalComicsProjectBiblios.

– – -. “Seeking Sherwood: Tools and Resources for Finding and Locating Comics Based on the Robin Hood Tradition for the Classroom and Research.” Global Outlaws: The Biennial Conference of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies, 5 December 2021. Virtual event. Academia.edu, https://www.academia.edu/63693049/2021_Seeking_Sherwood_Tools_and_Resources_for_Finding_and_Locating_Comics_Based_on_the_Robin_Hood_Tradition_for_the_Classroom_and_Research_.

For more information on the Medieval Comics Project and the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, please check out our websites at https://medieval-comics-project.blogspot.com/.

For more information on the International Association for Robin Hood Studies, please view our website Robin Hood Scholars: IARHS on the Web at https://robinhoodscholars.blogspot.com/. Details on The Bulletin of the International Association for Robin Hood Studies can be accessed from https://openjournals.bsu.edu/biarhs.

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MAA News – From the President

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Chris

Dear Colleagues and Friends,

I hope that you have had a pleasant summer! If you are anything like me or most of my colleagues, you are greeting the fall with a mix of astonishment at the rapid passage of time, and happy/apprehensive anticipation of cooler weather and the return of students (for those who teach) and the fuller fall slate of cultural and/or sports events.

I will write with news about Academy activities after the fall Council Meeting. I should also at that point be able to provide an update about the search for the next editor of Speculum, which is proceeding apace. For now, I am happy to report that the Centennial Grants Committee received an impressive number of exciting applications for educational and cultural activities related to the upcoming centennial year celebrations.

I also have the sad task of informing you of the loss of a beloved longtime member, Fellow, and Past President of the MAA (2010-2011). As many of you already know, Peggy died on August 8, peacefully, in her own home, having said goodbye to friends and family. She will be missed and warmly remembered by generations of scholars in the U.S. and Europe. There will be a full memorial to Peggy in a forthcoming issue of Speculum, and I know that several events honoring her life and work are being planned in various venues. I myself will miss Peggy dearly. She was a remarkable scholar, a fierce critic, and the warmest and most caring mentor and friend anyone could have. I was able to visit her a few days before she died; she held my hand and, waving aside questions about her health, steered the conversation toward medieval history in general, and the Medieval Academy in particular. I know that she would urge us all to continue to work, to collaborate, and to care for each other.

I wish everyone (in the U.S. that, is) a happy Labor Day and fine fall!

Sara Lipton

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MAA News – Upcoming Webinar: Medievalism Uncloistered: Bringing Underrepresented Voices into the Conversation

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Chris

Medievalism Uncloistered: Bringing Underrepresented Voices into the Conversation

(a webinar sponsored by the MAA Graduate Student Association)

Friday September 27 at 1pm EST

The Middle Ages often evoke images of academia’s exclusive domain, yet the richness of medieval studies can be greatly expanded through dialogue with those outside traditional academic circles. This webinar will explore how engaging with diverse communities — across educational, cultural, and social spectrums — can deepen our understanding of the medieval world and its influence on our present moment. Our speakers will share their experiences working with varied publics whose diverse interests and backgrounds demand genuinely novel approaches — through prison education, social media, podcasting, and modern archives. They will discuss how these interactions have not only broadened their own perspectives but also enriched the field of medieval studies. Join us to learn how expanding our conversation partners through new modes of engagement can lead to more inclusive and dynamic scholarship.

Speakers: Jon Correa-Reyes (Clemson; The Multicultural Middle Ages), Stefanie Matabang (UCLA), Olivia Swarthout (Weird Medieval Guys), and Mary Wellesley (London Review of Books)

Click here to register.

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MAA News – 2025 Publication Prizes

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Chris

The Medieval Academy of America invites submissions for the following prizes to be awarded at the 2025 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 2024.

PLEASE NOTE: 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 – Upcoming Deadlines

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Chris

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

Funded by the Richard III Society, American Branch. As of July 2024, the scope and amount of the Schallek program have changed in accordance with the Society’s instructions, as follows: “Applications will be solicited from graduate students whose work, in any relevant discipline, focuses primarily on the late medieval period in England or any of the British Isles, or which involves British connections to the European Continent in the late medieval period. ‘Late Medieval’ will be defined broadly as the period c.1350-1500 or so.” The Schallek Fellowship provides a one-year grant of $40,000 to support Ph.D. dissertation research. (Deadline 15 October 2024)

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 2024 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 2024)

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MAA News – 2025 Fellows Research Awards

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Chris

Supported entirely by donations from the Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America, the Fellows Fund supports 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, 2024. Awards will be announced at the 2025 Medieval Academy annual meeting. Click here for more information and to apply.

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MAA News – The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast Series

Posted on September 3, 2024 by Chris

After three successful seasons, The Multicultural Middle Ages (MMA) will return for its fourth in 2025. Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America, MMA is an anthology-style podcast that welcomes the global turn in Medieval Studies. This podcast series is a platform from which to continue ongoing conversations and generate new and exciting avenues of inquiry related to the Middle Ages that emphasize its diversity. We seek to highlight thoughtful reflections on culturally responsible approaches to the study of the Middle Ages. This is a space from which to speak to fellow medievalists and, more importantly, the wider public to inform our audience about the multicultural reality of the medieval period and the plurality of voices that comprise the fields of medieval studies.

We invite proposals from individuals and collaborators of all ranks and disciplines, including graduate students, for single podcast episodes aimed at fellow medievalists and the wider public.

Possible topics include, but are not limited to, the following:

  • Innovative methodological/disciplinary approaches to the Middle Ages
  • The future of Medieval Studies
  • Research on the multicultural, multiracial, and multiethnic Middle Ages
  • Discussions of recent scholarship
  • Archival discoveries
  • Academic activism and responses to misappropriations of the Middle Ages
  • Pedagogical approaches
  • Medievalisms
  • Medieval culture in contemporary political discourse
  • Cultural heritage and approaches to curating exhibitions of the Middle Ages

Possible formats may include narrative expositions, interviews, textual analysis, visual analysis, oral performances, and panel discussions.

No previous experience with podcasting is required. The Graduate Student Committee of the MAA has hosted several podcasting workshops, which are now available on the MAA YouTube channel. If accepted, an MMA team member will support you through the episode development process and post-production. If you would like our technical assistance to realize your episode, such as facilitating an interview, helping record the episode, or taking care of the audio editing, please make a note of it in your proposal.

Your application should include a brief description (500 words) of your proposed episode, noting the following:

  • The chosen topic and its relevance;
  • the plan for adapting the topic to a podcast medium (we encourage 40-50 min. episodes, but also welcome proposals for shorter or longer episodes);
  • the episode format (interview, narrative, etc.) with an overview of its structure
  • a description of the support you’ll need (if any) from the MMA production team.

This information is not binding but will help the committee assess the potential of the project. Please include the name and CV of each author. Submit your proposals and any questions to mmapodcast1@gmail.com and to Loren Lee (lel7qsf@virginia.edu) by October 11, 2024.

The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast Series Production Team

Will Beattie | wbeattie@nd.edu
Jonathan Correa Reyes | jonatcr@clemson.edu
Loren Lee | lel7qsf@virginia.edu
Reed O’Mara | rao44@case.edu
Logan Quigley | quigleylogan@gmail.com

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