Call for Nominations – CARA Award for Excellence in Teaching

Posted on September 20, 2023 by Chris

The Medieval Academy’s Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA) invites nominations for its annual teaching prize, which recognizes outstanding pedagogical achievement by Medieval Academy members. This can include:

  • teaching inspiring courses at the undergraduate or graduate level;
  • creating innovative teaching materials (including textbooks);
  • developing courses and curricula;
  • scholarship of teaching and learning (including presentations at conferences as well as publications)
  • support for K-12 pedagogy and curricula;
  • community-oriented or publicly-directed educational initiatives.

Normally, one prize is given for undergraduate and one prize for graduate teaching, each in the amount of $500. These will be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy. The annual deadline for nominations is 15 November. For more information, please visit the CARA Teaching Award web page here.

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Call for Nominations – Kindrick-CARA Service Award

Posted on September 20, 2023 by Chris

The Medieval Academy of America’s Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA) welcomes nominations for the Robert L. Kindrick–CARA Award for Outstanding Service to Medieval Studies. This award recognizes individuals who have developed, promoted, and administered Medieval Studies programming, curricula, and research—work that often goes unrecognized by the profession at large. Nominees for this award of $1000, presented at the Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy, normally should be members in good standing of the Medieval Academy of America. The annual deadline for nominations is 15 November. For more information, please visit the Kindrick-CARA Service Award web page here.

 

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Jobs For Medievalists

Posted on September 20, 2023 by Chris

Medieval Institute Publications – Marketing Specialist

Medieval Institute Publications at Western Michigan University invites applications for a marketing specialist position. Join our team and become part of a small, dynamic university publisher specializing in innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of the premodern world. Read more at: wmich.edu/medievalpublications/hiring, which links to the WMU Human Resources application portal.

We are seeking a medievalist for this position. Preferred qualifications include an MA in Medieval Studies or related discipline, two years of relevant experience, and familiarity with web design or marketing. This is a .75 FTE position (30 hours a week), but comes with full benefits. The initial deadline for full consideration is Sept 29, but the search will continue until the position is filled.

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Rare Book School Scholarship & Fellowship Applications Now Available

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Chris

Rare Book School at the University of Virginia is now accepting applications for its 2023 scholarship and fellowship cycle.

Applications are open for:

  • All RBS-awarded scholarships (for both first-time and returning RBS students). See the Scholarships page for descriptions of the various scholarships available. The application deadline for scholarships is Wednesday, 1 November 2023 at 11:59 p.m. ET. For questions about scholarships, please email rbs_scholarships@virginia.edu.
  • The M. C. Lang Fellowship in Book History, Bibliography, and Humanities Teaching with Historical Sources. The Lang Fellowship is a two-year program open to faculty and librarians at liberal arts colleges and small universities (i.e., 5,000 or fewer undergraduates) in the United States. The application deadline for the Lang Fellowship is Friday, 17 November 2023 at 11:59 p.m. ET. For questions about the Lang Fellowship, please email rbs_lang@virginia.edu.
    • Learn more about the Lang Fellowship at a virtual informational session on Monday 25 October at 7:00 p.m. ET. Register here.
  • The SoFCB Junior Fellows Program. The Society of Fellows in Critical Bibliography (SoFCB) is a community of scholars working across disciplines to advance the study of texts, images, and artifacts as material objects. Ten Junior Fellows will be selected to join the SoFCB; they may become Senior Fellows after completing two years in good standing. The application deadline for the SoFCB Junior Fellows Program is Friday, 17 November 2023 at 11:59 p.m. ET. For questions about the SoFCB Junior Fellows Program, please email sofcb_staff@virginia.edu.

To begin the application process, please log into your myRBS account (or create a new myRBS account). The Home screen includes links to each of the scholarship and fellowship application portals.

Scholarship applicants will be considered for all awards for which they are eligible (and should note that separate applications are required for the fellowship programs).

For general queries about RBS scholarships and fellowships, see the FAQs page.

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Upcoming Mary Jaharis Center Online Lectures (Sept 28 & Oct 6)

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Chris

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

Thursday, September 28, 2023 | 12:00 PM EDT | Zoom
Byzantium as an Indian Ocean Society
Rebecca Darley, University of Leeds

Much of the current move towards global history is focussed on connections. Viewed from this perspective, there is no very good reason for seeing Byzantium in the first millennium CE as an Indian Ocean society. Its direct contact with the Indian Ocean was attenuated in comparison with earlier Roman contact and increasingly mediated by others, most notably from the seventh century onwards, citizens of the Umayyad then Abbasid Caliphates. There are other ways to think about both Byzantium and global history, though. This paper examines Byzantium not as a player in an Indian Ocean defined by mercantile networks, but as one of many societies around the Indian Ocean littoral, shaped by common forces. Between the fourth and the ninth centuries, understanding Byzantium as an Indian Ocean society, in direct comparison with complex states from the Horn of Africa to peninsular South Asia provides a new insight into the development of governmental structures, state religion and economic practices that all affected the lives of millions of people in profound and sometimes unpredictable ways.

Rebecca Darley is a scholar of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Western Indian Ocean in the first millennium. She is currently employed as Associate Professor of Global History, 500-1500 CE at the University of Leeds.

Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/byzantium-as-an-indian-ocean-society

Friday, October 6, 2023 | 12:00 PM EDT | Zoom
A Song of Theology and Emotion: Romanos the Melodist’s Hymn on Pentecost
Andrew Mellas, St Andrew’s Theological College and University of Sydney

While Romanos the Melodist composed hymns rather than theological treatises, the theology of his poetry echoed the festal orations of the fourth-century Cappadocian, Gregory the Theologian. Articulating the mystery of the Trinity through the performance of his hymn for the feast of Pentecost, Romanos wove together sacred song and theology, retelling the scriptural stories that defined the Byzantines, and shaping an emotional and liturgical community in Constantinople. Poetry and music showed forth the hidden fears and desires of scriptural characters amidst the overarching narrative of Pentecost, inviting the faithful to become part of the biblical narrative unfolding before them and experience the mystery of the Trinity. This paper will explore how Romanos the Melodist reimagined the events narrated in the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, amplifying the biblical story, echoing the theology of Gregory’s oration on Pentecost and providing an affective script for his audience.

Andrew Mellas is a Senior Lecturer at St Andrew’s Theological College and an Honorary Associate at the University of Sydney’s Medieval and Early Modern Centre.

Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/a-song-of-theology-and-emotion

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

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Call for Papers – 19th Annual Marco Manuscript Workshop: “The Whole Book” (Feb. 2-3, 2024)

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Chris

19th Annual Marco Manuscript Workshop
“The Whole Book”
February 2-3, 2023

The nineteenth annual Marco Manuscript Workshop will take place Friday, February 2, and Saturday, February 3, 2024, in person at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The workshop is organized by Professor Roy M. Liuzza (English) and is hosted by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

This year’s workshop explores the idea of “the whole book.” Most early texts do not appear on their own, but are copied with other texts, bundled and bound in groups, and put between covers with any number of related and unrelated works. Even after a book is made it can be added to, subtracted from, edited, emended, annotated, censored, damaged, or broken up into smaller books. As modern readers, our usual impulse is to try to restore a text to some pristine original state fresh from the author’s pen, which often means ignoring or stripping away the layers of history to be found in the surviving copies of the text. But the manuscript, however far removed it may be from the author, is always the most immediate context of a work; what can it tell us about the work’s origins, its history, and its meaning to the people who made it, read it, and copied it? What can we tell about a work by the strange company it has kept, the glosses and notes it has accumulated, even the damage it has sustained? How does putting a text back into its manuscript context help us understand it? As always, we welcome presentations on any aspect of this topic, broadly imagined, or on any other aspect of manuscripts, epigraphy, and the history of writing.

The workshop is open to scholars and graduate students in any field who are engaged in textual editing, manuscript studies, or epigraphy. Individual 75-minute sessions will be devoted to each project; participants will be asked to introduce their text and its context, discuss their approach to working with their material, and exchange ideas and information with other participants. As in previous years, the workshop is intended to be more like a class than a conference; participants are encouraged to share new discoveries and unfinished work, to discuss both their successes and frustrations, to offer practical advice and theoretical insights, and to work together towards developing better professional skills for textual and codicological work. We particularly invite the presentation of works in progress, unusual problems, practical difficulties, and new or experimental models for studying or representing manuscript texts. Presenters will receive a $500 honorarium for their participation.

The deadline for applications is November 3, 2023. Applicants are asked to submit a current CV and a two-page abstract of their project to Roy M. Liuzza via email to rliuzza@utk.edu or marco@utk.edu, or by mail to the Department of English, University of Tennessee, 301 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN 37996-0430.

The workshop is also open at no cost to scholars and students who do not wish to present their own work but are interested in sharing a lively weekend of discussion and ideas about manuscript studies. Further details will be available later in the year; please contact the Marco Institute at marco@utk.edu or visit marco.utk.edu/ms-workshop/ for more information.

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The Image of the Book: Representing the Codex from Antiquity to the Present

Posted on September 19, 2023 by Chris

The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies is pleased to announce that registration is open for the 16th Annual Lawrence J. Schoenberg Symposium on Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age:

November 16-18, 2023

A great deal of recent research has focused on the objecthood of the pre-modern book and its associated materiality. But only sporadic attempts have been made to understand the role of visual representations of the book in conveying ideas about knowledge. How can our understanding be transformed when the dictum that “a picture is worth a thousand words” is put into practice, when the how of depiction is accorded as much importance as the what of textual content? This symposium will examine the means by which the book, and in particular the manuscript, is described across a wide variety of media, from painting and sculpture to digital media and film. Topics to be addressed include the book as a symbol of authority, wisdom, or piety; the visual archeology of otherwise vanished bookbinding styles, reading practices, and study spaces; and the re-imagining of the physicality of the codex through digital means. The event will also mark the public launch at Penn Libraries of the Books as Symbols in Renaissance Art (BASIRA) project, an innovative, public-access web database of thousands of depictions of books in artwork produced between about 1300 and 1600 CE. The database, like the symposium itself, aims to engage historians of religion, literacy, art, music, language, and private life, as well as book artists, conservators, and interested members of the public. The symposium is organized in partnership with the Rare Book Department of the Free Library of Philadelphia.

The program will begin Thursday evening, November 16, 5:00 pm, at the Free Library of Philadelphia in the Rare Book Department, with a reception and keynote address by Jeffrey Hamburger, Kuno Francke Professor of German Art & Culture, Harvard University. The symposium will continue November 17-18 at Penn Libraries’ Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts.

The symposium will be held in person with an option to join virtually. All are welcome to attend. A link to register and program details are available here: https://www.library.upenn.edu/events/lawrence-j-schoenberg/image-book-representing-codex.

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Call for Papers – Comics Get Medieval 2023: New Work on the Comics Medium in Medieval Studies

Posted on September 13, 2023 by Chris

Comics Get Medieval 2023: New Work on the Comics Medium in Medieval Studies (virtual)

Call for Papers (UPDATED) – Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2023
The Medieval in Cyberspace: 2023 International Conference for the Study of Medievalism
The UNICORN Castle (https://unicorn-castle.org/)
Online event: Thursday, 26 October, through Saturday, 28 October, 2023

Comics Get Medieval 2023: New Work on the Comics Medium in Medieval Studies (virtual)

Sponsoring Organization: Medieval Comics Project
Organizers: Michael A. Torregrossa, Richard Scott Nokes, and Carl Sell

The comics medium offers a wealth of material of relevance to medievalists from comic-like art and illustrations created during the Middle Ages to cartoons, comics, and related media designed in post-medieval times.
Comics from the medieval era present unique insights into the past and allow us to forge a connection with those that lived and worked then through a now-familiar artform.
Meanwhile, modern comics with medieval themes adapt, appropriate, and transform the medieval, allowing present-day creators to bring history, legends, literature, myths, and personages to life through disparate formats and genres presented for audiences across the globe.

In this session, we seek to celebrate and explore the variety and vitality of medieval comics (both those from the medieval past as well as more contemporary ones) and to share that material with our colleagues to promote further debate, discussion, and inquiry and to, hopefully, inspire future research and teaching.

Topics might include:

  • Creating medieval or medieval-themed comics
  • Sharing resources for accessing medieval or medieval-themed comics
  • Study of a particular character across a series or variety of comics
  • Study of a particular comic or series of comics
  • Study of a particular creator (artist, writer, etc.) of comics
  • Using medieval comics in the classroom or for research
  • Using medieval-themed comics in the classroom or for research

We are especially seeking coverage on comics from outside the United States. We also welcome assistance through bibliographies, interviews, and/or resource guides that can be shared with our audience.

All proposals for the session must be submitted directly to the organizers, at Comics.Get.Medieval@gmail.com, by 15 September 2023.

Please check out our growing resources on medieval-themed comics at the Medieval Comics Project (https://medieval-comics-project.blogspot.com/) and the Arthurian Comics Project (https://arthur-of-the-comics-project.blogspot.com/) websites. We also maintain two listservs of relevanceñboth the Medieval Comics Discussion List (at https://groups.io/g/medieval-comixlist) and the Arthurian Comics Discussion List (at https://groups.io/g/arthurian-comixlist)–and welcome new members. :

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

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Call for Papers – Beowulfs Beyond Beowulf: Transformations of Beowulf in Popular Culture (Panel)

Posted on September 13, 2023 by Chris

Beowulfs Beyond Beowulf: Transformations of Beowulf in Popular Culture (Panel)

Sponsored by the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture and the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association
Organized by Michael A. Torregrossa, Richard Fahey, Carl Sell, and Benjamin Hoover

Call for Papers – Please Submit Proposals by 30 September 2023
55th Annual Convention of Northeast Modern Language Association
Sheraton Boston Hotel (Boston, MA)
On-site event: 7-10 March 2024

Beowulfs Beyond Beowulf: Transformations of Beowulf in Popular Culture (Panel)

The Old English epic Beowulf remains an important touchstone for connecting us to the medieval past, yet it also has continued relevance today through its various transformations in cultural texts (especially works of popular culture). Our hope with this session is to expand our knowledge of these works and assess their potential for research and teaching.

Please visit our website Beowulf Transformed: Adaptations and Appropriations of the Beowulf Story (available at https://beowulf-transformed.blogspot.com/) for resources and ideas.

The full call for papers (with complete session and submission information) can be accessed at https://tinyurl.com/Beowulf-Transformed-NeMLA-2024.

Session Information

Over a millennium old, the story of Beowulf is disseminated primarily through its editions and translations and its transformations. These three types of Beowulfiana represent a massive corpus of over 1000 works according to the Beowulfís Afterlives Bibliographic Database; though, as medievalists, we tend to focus on the first two categories rather than the last concentrating on scholastic pursuits rather than entertainments. Consequently, many are often surprised by the variety and vitality of this corpus and its vast potential for research and teaching.

New versions of the Beowulf story feature in all forms of modern mediÊvalisms, yet (as is true with most medieval texts) research continues to focus primarily on depictions of Beowulf on screen (about 100 examples according to the Internet Movie Database). We hope in this session to expand our view of Beowulfís reception by creators and look more deeply at the textís wider use.

We are particularly interested in explorations of the adaptation and/or appropriation of the text, its characters, and its themes in works of fiction (at least 250 examples according to the Internet Speculative Fiction Database and much more recorded by the Beowulfís Afterlives Bibliographic Database) and comics (at least 380 examples according to the Grand Comics Database), as well as their representations in new and neglected works on screen (including film, television, entertainment consoles, and the Internet). Additional versions of Beowulf can be found in works of creative, performative, and visual arts that also need more attention.

We hope to make our conversation productive. Therefore, we request that submissions highlight the ways the new text transforms the old (for example as interpretations or appropriations of the poem or as an intertext for another work) as well as its value in furthering the Beowulf tradition rather than focusing solely on any perceived defects.

Please see our website Beowulf Transformed: Adaptations and Appropriations of the Beowulf Story (at https://beowulf-transformed.blogspot.com/) for a growing list of ideas, resources, and support.

All proposals will also be considered for a themed issue of the open-access journal The Heroic Age: A Journal of Early Medieval Northwestern Europe.

Please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com.

Submission Information

All proposals must be submitted into the CFPList system at https://cfplist.com/nemla/Home/S/20596 by 30 September 2023. You will be prompted to create an account with NeMLA (if you do not already have one) and, then, to complete sections on Title, Abstract, and Media Needs.

Notification on the fate of your submission will be made prior to 16 October 2023. If favorable, please confirm your participation with chairs by accepting their invitations and by registering for the event. The deadline for Registration/Membership is 9 December 2023.

Be advised of the following policies of the Convention: All participants must be members of NeMLA for the year of the conference. Participants may present on up to two sessions of different types (panels/seminars are considered of the same type). Submitters to the CFP site cannot upload the same abstract twice.(See the NeMLA Presenter Policies page, at https://www.buffalo.edu/nemla/convention/policies.html, for further details,)

Thank you for your interest in our session.

Again, please address questions and/or concerns to the organizers at popular.preternaturaliana@gmail.com.

For more information on the Association for the Advancement of Scholarship and Teaching of the Medieval in Popular Culture, please visit our website at https://MedievalinPopularCulture.blogspot.com/.

For more information on the Monsters & the Monstrous Area of the Northeast Popular Culture Association, please visit our website at https://popularpreternaturaliana.blogspot.com/.

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Call for Papers – Saving the Day at Kalamazoo: Finding Comics for Medievalist Research and Teaching (A Workshop) (virtual)

Posted on September 13, 2023 by Chris

Saving the Day at Kalamazoo: Finding Comics for Medievalist Research and Teaching (A Workshop) (virtual)

Call for Presenters – Please Submit Proposals by 15 September 2023
59th International Congress on Medieval Studies
Western Michigan University (Kalamazoo, Michigan)
Hybrid event: Thursday, 9 May, through Saturday, 11 May, 2024

Saving the Day at Kalamazoo: Finding Comics for Medievalist Research and Teaching (A Workshop) (virtual)

Sponsoring Organization: Medieval Comics Project
Organizers: Michael A. Torregrossa, Richard Scott Nokes, and Carl Sell

The comics medium has much to offer to the field of Medieval Studies, but medievalists are often unfamiliar with comics and how to go about locating them and incorporating them productively into their work.

The focus of this workshop will be to present resources for finding comics of relevance to medieval topics (and legitimate scholarship on them) and to allow participants to employ these tools under the guidance of experts in the field. In addition, we hope that this forum will serve as a safe space to ask questions and address concerns about comics and their value.

To support our endeavors, we are interested in contributions to the workshop towards helping participants access medieval-themed comics in general as well as approaches to more focused topics relevant to the field of Medieval Studies. We are especially seeking coverage on comics from outside the United States. We also welcome assistance through bibliographies, interviews, and/or resource guides that can be shared with our participants.

All proposals for the workshop must be submitted directly to the organizers, at Comics.Get.Medieval@gmail.com, by 15 September 2023.

Please check out our growing resources on medieval-themed comics at the Medieval Comics Project (https://medieval-comics-project.blogspot.com/) and the Arthurian Comics Project (https://arthur-of-the-comics-project.blogspot.com/) websites. We also maintain two listservs of relevanceñboth the Medieval Comics Discussion List (at https://groups.io/g/medieval-comixlist) and the Arthurian Comics Discussion List (at https://groups.io/g/arthurian-comixlist)–and welcome new members. :

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

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