Job-Market Data for Medieval Studies

Posted on May 30, 2023 by Chris

Dear Academy Members,

Welcome to summer. For those who teach in the Northern Hemisphere, congratulations for making it through another academic year. And for medievalists both inside and outside the academy, I hope that the longer days, warmer weekends, and vacation days provide us all with the opportunity to read outside our fields, spend a couple of hours contemplating medieval objects in a local museum, or to travel to medieval sites and archives.

Before everyone disappears into their summers, I want to draw your attention to a piece of essential reading––the MAA’s report on academic positions in medieval studies.

The report comes out of a proposal made in 2020 by the Ad Hoc Committee on Professional Diversity to gather data on the medieval job market. The new report is based on job data collected and analyzed by Merle Eisenberg, of Oklahoma State University, with help from Laura Ingallinella, Skyler Anderson, Jonathan Henry, and Cate Kurtz. Thanks to their hard work, we now have seven years of data on tenure-track jobs (2015–16 to 2022–3) in History, English, Islamic Studies, Italian Studies, Art History, and Religious Studies/Theology. The data confirms what many of us suspected: academic employment for medievalists with Ph.D.s has narrowed considerably over the past decade, the job market for medievalists has not returned to its pre-Covid levels, and tenure-track positions across disciplines are disappearing. Merle’s report is essential reading for anyone who teaches graduate students or who is a graduate student. It underscores how important it is that Ph.D. programs train their students for a broad array of careers and that we all need to continue working to ensure that medievalists outside the academy can remain active in the field after they have written their dissertations. The future of the study of the Middle Ages depends on it!

Robin Fleming, President

Posted in MAA | Leave a comment

Call for Papers – 2023 Southeastern Medieval Association Annual Conference

Posted on May 26, 2023 by Chris

The Medieval Studies Program at Winthrop University invites proposals for presentations and panels at the 2023 Southeastern Medieval Association Annual Conference. The event will be held on Winthrop’s campus, which is located roughly 25 miles from Charlotte, NC (home to a major airport), on Oct. 12-14.

The theme is “Construction and Reconstruction.” Plenary speakers include Dr. Jacqueline Jung (Professor of History of Art, Yale University) and Dr. Jehangir Malegam (Associate Professor of History, Duke University). More details and the proposal submission form can be found on our website: https://semarockhill2023.com.

**Deadline for submission is June 15.** Please reach out to us at sema2023@winthrop.edu if you have questions.

Posted in Call for Papers | Leave a comment

Call for Papers – ‘Race’, Divisive Law and Group Identity in Medieval Europe

Posted on May 15, 2023 by Chris

‘Race’, Divisive Law and Group Identity in Medieval Europe
Swansea University, UK
(in association with Nicolaus Copernicus University, Toruń, Poland)
07 and 08 September 2023

The process of colonisation at the European ‘peripheries’ (e.g. Wales, Ireland, Prussia, Livonia, reconquest Spain, the Levant, etc.), increasing legal consciousness and categorisation, and growing self-awareness among literary, occupational and political communities transformed the social and political landscape of later medieval Europe’s core and peripheral areas alike. This conference shall bring together exciting new perspectives on processes of group formation, group legal and social articulation, and interaction between groups and authorities, broadly conceived.

This will be an interdisciplinary conference welcoming historians, art historians, archaeologists, literary scholars and sociologists. It will discuss the complex relationships that existed between two or more of: formulations of ‘race’ (biological, ethnic, linguistic or proto-national), divisive laws and identity groups. We welcome perspectives incorporating, for example: colonisation, urbanisation, spiritual space, integration/assimilation, rebellion, minority experience, self-expression, material culture, contemporary group characterisations.

Proposals: We invite proposals for 20 minute student papers and 30 minute academic papers (abstracts of 250 words). Proposals should be emailed to Dr Rhiannon Sandy r.sandy@swansea.ac.uk (English language) or Dr Anna Maleszka annam@umk.pl (Polish or German) by 5pm on 01 July 2023.

Pre-register to attend: email r.sandy@swansea.ac.uk or annam@umk.pl

Languages: English and German (with English translation).

Venue:  Swansea University, Wales, UK

Costs: Funding is currently being organised, but speakers should expect it to comprise only a modest fixed contribution to travel and accommodation within the UK. Non-presenting delegates should expect to pay a modest conference fee, with a reduction or waiver for PhD Students.

Posted in Call for Papers | Leave a comment

Magisterial Feminae: How Women Who Studied the Ancient World Innovated Brooklyn College, the Latin/Greek Institute, and Beyond

Posted on May 15, 2023 by Chris

The Brooklyn College (CUNY) Archives & Special Collections has opened an exhibition celebrating female premodernists who taught at Brooklyn College before 1980, including medievalists (and MAA members) Elizabeth A.R. Brown, Nancy Black, and Jacqueline De Weever.

Brooklyn College Associate Professor of History Lauren Mancia and Assistant Dean for Academic Programs and Director of the Latin/Greek Institute Lucas G. Rubin, as well as twelve History and Classics students from Brooklyn College, have created an incredible exhibit that will serve as a fascinating walk back in time and will run through December 31, 2023. There is also an online version of the exhibition here: https://libguides.brooklyn.cuny.edu/magisterial-feminae.

The exhibition draws from the rich resources of the Brooklyn College Archives and Special Collections. The materials celebrate these women’s extraordinary contributions to the classroom and their discoveries and transformative insights into the study of premodernity. It also situates their achievements in the context of a mid-twentieth-century academic landscape that was always challenging, if not sometimes downright hostile, to women. The exhibit details their hardships and the battle many of these premodernists waged against sexism in the academy in the 1970s, of which the founding of the Brooklyn College Women’s Center and the Women’s Studies Program are a consequence.

There are several major threads to this exhibition that tells the story of the academic achievements of premodernist women faculty, and it demonstrates how their specific training equipped them with an array of skills that were transformative, in and out of the classrooms of Brooklyn College. Other major Brooklyn College institutions will also be highlighted, including the legacy of the Latin/Greek Institute (LGI), celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year. Since it was founded in 1973, the LGI has graduated almost 3,000 students, including many medievalists.

“When we began doing the research for this exhibition, we thought we were simply going to tell the stories of these female professors, their academic achievements, and their legacy. We thought we were merely going to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Latin/Greek Institute,” Mancia said. “But one of the most surprising and timely things we’ve found in our archival research is how these women time and time again reached for the humanities, and the premodern, at times of crisis in Brooklyn College’s history. After World War II, after the NYC budget crises of the 1970s, and after the enrollment crises resulting from the transformations in CUNY’s admissions and tuition policies in the late 1970s, these women saw the humanities as the means for Brooklyn College’s—and higher education’s—revitalization and survival through hard times.”

The exhibit helps highlight the work of Brooklyn College’s Late-Antique-Medieval-Early-Modern (LAMEM) working group of 23 different faculty members from eight different departments and programs around the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (Art, Classics, English, History, Judaic Studies, Modern Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, and Religion). LAMEM celebrates its 10th year in 2023 and is co-convened by medievalists Lauren Mancia (History) and Karl Steel (English) in 2022-23, and Nicola Masciandaro (English) in 2023-2024.

The exhibit opened on May 2nd, 2023, and medievalists Elizabeth A.R. Brown, Jacqueline De Weever, and Nancy Black were in attendance. Medievalists Sara McDougall (John Jay/Graduate Center CUNY), Nancy Regalado (NYU) and Marianne Kowaleski (Fordham) were also there. Photos of the opening are below.

Visitors without a CUNY ID can show government-issued IDs at any of the campus entrances and enter the Brooklyn College Library to visit the exhibit during normal hours. Anyone interested in arranging a special tour of the exhibit for a class or group before the closing in December can contact Lauren Mancia at laurenmancia@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

Call for Papers – Epic in the Latin West (4th-15th Centuries)

Posted on May 9, 2023 by Chris

Epic in the Latin West (4th-15th Centuries)
Nuremberg, Wednesday, 25 September 2024 – Saturday, 28 September 2024

Epic, beyond other genres, has been both a guarantor of cultural continuity for millennia and a site of fundamental innovations in literary style and content in Western culture. It has also occasioned heated controversies, because of the complex associations it bears, e.g., with nationalism, colonialism or racism. How do such debates relate to Medieval Latin – or do they?

The conference “Epic in the Latin West (4th–15th Centuries)” proposes to explore the genre in its highly varied developments from Late Antiquity to the Early Modern Period. Medieval Latin gave expression to an overwhelming number of epics, many of them still little studied. The centre of gravity will be the Latin of the Middle Ages, but connections with Classics, other vernaculars, and modernity from the Renaissance to the present day are also possible topics. What do these earlier centuries have to say to the twenty-first?

Many avenues might be investigated, such as:

– Epic Heroes and Heroines: adaptation of classical heroes (from Homer, Virgil, Lucan, and others); questions of gender; rise of new heroes (biblical and saintly); effects of Christianity on the nature of heroism.

– Texts and Genres: epic and other genres (e.g. historical writing, hagiography, philosophy, and theology); defining features of epic; orality and literacy, in composition and transmission; stylistics and metrics; verse in relation to prose.

– Reception: intertextuality, concentrating on Latin but also relating to the vernaculars; text transmission and philological aspects; quotation and paraphrase; text and image; text and music; epic and other media (romances, novels, film, and recent media forms, so long as the connection with Medieval Latin is strong).

The conference will take place under the aegis of the International Medieval Latin Committee (president: Prof. Dr. Jan Ziolkowski, Harvard). Mornings will feature plenary lectures (keynote speeches) by internationally recognized specialists, while the afternoon will have papers given in panel sessions (each 20 minutes plus 10 minutes discussion). The conference languages are German, English, French, Italian, Latin, and Spanish.

This call for papers is open to scholars at all career stages who would like to present in the panel sessions. Interested individuals should send their proposals to kongress-epos2024@fau.de under the key word Vortrag Epos 2024 by 1 March 2024.

Please send, in addition to your C.V., the title of your contribution and an abstract in English (max. 300 words). The papers themselves may be delivered in any of the conference languages named above. In selecting papers, the organizers are looking to create a spectrum that is thematically and methodologically as broad as possible.

For more information about the conference and accompanying program, see our homepage:

https://www.mittellatein.phil.fau.de/epos-2024-2/

Prospective presenters and audience members may register there.

For 10 young scholars, travel bursaries in the amount of 400€ each will be available on a competitive basis through the generosity of the HWB Mittellatein Foundation. Please send your application before 30 June 2024, including a full C.V. and a short statement describing your interest in Medieval Latin to: Dr. iur. Felix Berschin, Kennwort „HWB Mittellatein“, Max-Reger-Str. 41, 69121 Heidelberg (Germany)

Posted in Call for Papers | Leave a comment

IAS – School of Historical Studies Membership Announcement

Posted on May 4, 2023 by Chris

The Institute is an independent private institution founded in 1930 to create a community of scholars focused on intellectual inquiry, free from teaching and other university obligations. Scholars from around the world come to the Institute to pursue their research. Candidates of any nationality may apply for a single term or a full academic year. Scholars may apply for a stipend, but those with sabbatical funding, other grants, retirement funding, or other means are also invited to apply for a non-stipendiary membership. Open to all fields of historical research, the School of Historical Studies’ principal interests is the history of western, near eastern and Asian civilizations, with particular emphasis on Greek and Roman civilization, the history of Europe (medieval, early modern, and modern), the Islamic world, East Asian studies, art history, the history of science, and late modern history. Support is available each year for one scholar in music studies. A Ph.D. (or equivalent) and influential publications are required.

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

New course at Rare Book School: “Using Digitized Manuscripts”

Posted on May 3, 2023 by Chris

Rare Book School at the University of Virginia is pleased to offer a new course this summer that may be of interest to MAA members: “Using Digitized Manuscripts” taught by Dot Porter. Over the past 20 years, the number of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that have been digitized has expanded dramatically. What opportunities does this widespread digitization make possible? In this class, students will learn about the process of digitization, focusing on photography and touching on other methods for making manuscripts available through digitization. We will learn and experiment with various tools for working with digitized manuscripts. Finally, we will discuss both the promise and the limitations of digitization.

Over the course of the week, students will have the opportunity to apply new knowledge to a digitized manuscript of their choice and share their progress and results with the class. The course will combine lectures, tours, readings, hands-on project development, and group discussion.

Students should come to class with a digitized manuscript they wish to work with and should have access to images and a description of the manuscript. Applicants’ personal statements should include a description of the manuscript and a discussion of what kind of project they are interested in undertaking with the manuscript.

This course will run 24-28 July. If you would like additional information or are interested in applying, please visit: https://rarebookschool.org/courses/manuscripts/m105v/

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

Call for Sessions: Mary Jaharis Center Sponsored Panel, 7th Forum Medieval Art

Posted on May 3, 2023 by Chris

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for a Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at the 7th Forum Medieval Art/Forum Kunst des Mittelalters, Jena, September 25–28, 2024. The biannual colloquium is organized by the Deutsche Verein für Kunstwissenschaft e.V.

The theme for the 7th Forum Medieval Art is Light: Art, Metaphysics and Science in the Middle Ages.

The Mary Jaharis Center invites session proposals that fit within the Light theme and are relevant to Byzantine studies.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is May 29, 2023.

If the proposed session is approved, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 4 session participants (presenters and session chair) up to $500 maximum for participants traveling from locations in Germany, up to $800 maximum for participants traveling from the EU, and up to $1400 maximum for participants traveling from outside Europe. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided. Eligible expenses include conference registration, transportation, and food and lodging. Receipts are required for reimbursement. The Mary Jaharis Center regrets that it cannot reimburse participants who have last-minute cancellations and are unable to attend the conference.

For a complete description of the theme, further details, and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/7th-forum-medieval-art.

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

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

MAA News – From the Executive Director: ACLS Annual Meeting

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Chris

I was very pleased to have attended the Annual Meeting of the American Council of Learned Societies in Philadelphia on April 27-29 together with the MAA’s new ACLS Delegate Afrodesia McCannon (New York Univ.). Many MAA members may not realize that in addition to offering grants and fellowships, the ACLS provides critical support, counsel, and training for staff, governance, and volunteer leadership of its seventy-nine constituent learned societies. The Medieval Academy of America was among the earliest members of ACLS, joining in 1927. As our delegate, Prof. McCannon is a voting member of the ACLS Council and is tasked with delivering an annual report on ACLS meetings and programming to the MAA Council and members. This report is delivered during our own Annual Meeting and is published in the July issue of Speculum each year.

This year’s ACLS Annual Meeting included panels, lectures, and discussions focusing on the complexities of open-access publishing, ongoing threats to the humanities, legislative attacks on academic free speech, and issues facing students, teachers, and staff at HBCUs nationwide. All of these topics are of import to the MAA as we think about the direction of our own publishing programs, the future of Medieval Studies, and efforts to make our field and our organization a welcoming and safe space for BIPOC medievalists and their work. On Friday evening, the 2023 Charles Homer Haskins Prize Lecture was delivered by Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who spoke about the journey from his childhood in rural West Virginia to his role as producer and host of the PBS series “Finding Your Roots.”

On Saturday morning, I was elected to the Executive Committee of the Conference of Executive Officers (CEO), where I had been serving a one-year replacement term. I look forward to serving a full three-year term working with Executive Directors from other ACLS societies to set priorities and agendas for the CEO’s biannual meetings. The CEO has been an incredibly valuable resource for me throughout my tenure as ED, and I am grateful to have the opportunity to be part of its leadership.

– Lisa

Posted in MAA Newsletter | Leave a comment

MAA News – Committee Appointments

Posted on May 1, 2023 by Chris

I am very pleased to announce the new MAA committee members, recently appointed by the Council in accordance with our policies and procedures:

Conferences:

American Historical Association Program Committee: Craig Nakashian (History, Texas A&M-Arcana)

Kalamazoo Program Committee: Marilyn Gasparini (Art History, Independent Scholar)

Leeds Program Committee: Katrin Kogman-Appel (Judaic Studies, Univ. of Münster)

Grants:

Olivia Remie Constable Award Committee: Edward Holt (History, Grambling State)

Inclusivity & Diversity Prize Committee: Ruma N. Salhi (History, Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale)

Committee for Professional Development: Mark Singer (History, Minot State Univ.)

Schallek Committee: Esther Liberman Cuenca (History, Univ. of Houston-Victoria)

Professional Support:

Advocacy Committee: Elan Justice Pavlinich (English, Wabash College); Jeffrey Stoyanoff (English and Gender, Penn State Altoona); Mary Caldwell (Musicology, Univ. of Pennsylvania)

CARA Executive Board: Virginia Blanton (English, Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City)

Database of Medieval Digital Resources Committee: Leland Renato Grigoli (Perspectives on History, American Historical Association); Kathryne Beebe (Digital Humanities and Late Antiquity, Univ. of North Texas)

Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Committee: Victoria McAlister (History & Archaeology, Towson Univ.)

Graduate Student Committee: Chair: Will Beattie (Medieval Studies, Univ. of Notre Dame); Members: Charles East (Medieval Studies, Princeton Univ.); Masha Goldin (Art History, Univ. of Basel)

Inclusivity & Diversity Committee: Rachael Vause (Art History, Univ. of Delaware)

K-12 Committee: Erin Grady (Art History, Ravenscroft School, Raleigh, NC); Candace Barrington (English, Central Connecticut State Univ.)

Mentoring Programs Committee: Adan Ramirez-Figueroa (Romance Languages, Harvard Univ.); Jennifer Speed (Research Development Strategist, Princeton Univ.); Thomas Barton (History, Univ. of San Diego)

Publications Advisory Board: Penn Szittya (Lannan Foundation)

Publication Prizes:

John Nicholas Brown Prize Committee: Stephen Lahey (Theology, Univ. of Nebraska-Lincoln)

Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Prize Committee: M. Alison Stones (Art History, Univ. of Pittsburgh)

Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize Committee: James Palmer (History, Florida State Univ.)

Karen Gould Prize Committee: Debra Strickland (Art History, Univ. of Glasgow)

Monica H. Green Prize Committee: Robert Figueira (History, Lander Univ.)

Haskins Medal Committee: Brigitte Bedos-Rezak (History, New York Univ.)

Jerome E. Singerman Prize Committee: Barbara Newman (History, Northwestern Univ.)

I look forward to working with these new volunteers and the continuing committee members (all of whom are listed on the MAA website: About -> Committees). I am so grateful to all of our volunteers for their service to the Academy and to our field. We could not do our work without you!

– Lisa

Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director

p.s. if you are interested in being considered for committee service next year, please fill out this form (if you have filled it out in the past, please do so again so that we are certain to have your up-to-date preferences in hand).

Posted in MAA Newsletter | Leave a comment