The Medieval Academy Blog

The 99th Annual Meeting of the
Medieval Academy of America
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana
March 14–16, 2024

The 99th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will take place in South Bend, Indiana, on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. The meeting is hosted by Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute, St. Mary’s College, Holy Cross College, and Indiana University, South Bend. The conference will be entirely in person, though the plenary lectures and some other events will also be live-streamed.

The themes for this year’s meeting are “Mapping the Middle Ages,” “Bodies in Motion,” and “Communities of Knowledge.” Plenary addresses will be delivered by Robin Fleming (Boston College), Bissera Pentcheva (Stanford), and Jack Tannous (Princeton).

Sixty concurrent sessions will represent a range of threads, including “Digitally Mapping the Middle Ages,” “Sacred Interiors,” “Islamic Epistemology,” “Mapping Real and Imaginary Travel,” “Mobile Bodies,” and “Border Crossings,” and cover topics addressing material culture, literary studies, cosmology, architecture, liturgy, and pandemics, to name a few. Roundtables and workshops will highlight union organizing in higher education, writing for a public audience, and publishing on the Middle Ages.

Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute has one of the preeminent library collections for medieval studies in North America. You are welcome to visit the Medieval Institute during your stay on campus. You can find it on the 7th floor of the University’s Theodore M. Hesburgh Library.

Beyond the conference and its sessions, other attractions are available to you before and during the meeting. On Wednesday, March 13, workshops on sacred chant, digital medieval studies, and fragmentology will be offered. Notre Dame Library’s Special Collections will showcase an exhibit entitled “Mapping the Middle Ages: Marking Time, Space, and Knowledge,” while the campus Digital Visualization Theater will host a 360-degree visual and aural presentation on the cosmology of Hildegard of Bingen. Visit the newly-opened Raclin Murphy Museum of Art and while there enjoy a special exhibit of early woodcuts and engravings, including Albrecht Dürer’s famous Apocalypse series. The Morris Inn will host an Irish Céilí dance on Saturday evening.

Registration will open in January. Click here for more information

As a collaborative effort between the University of Notre Dame, Digital Medievalist, and the Medieval Academy of America, a one-day, pre-conference workshop in digital scholarly methods will be held before the annual MAA meeting in March 2024. The event is tailored especially to medievalists, their sources, and their scholarly concerns and will feature established approaches in digital medieval studies.

There are two ways to participate in DMSI 2024.

First, five separate day-long workshops will be offered accompanied by two sessions of lightning talks, followed by a social hour.

Second, participants can give a short presentation about any project in digital medieval studies they have been involved in; the topic of a short presentation does not have to be the same as the workshop in which the participant enrolls. Participants will be able to present a lightning talk only if they are accepted to attend the full-day workshop. Click here for more information and to apply.

If you have recently seen a major research project to completion, please let us know! The 2024 Medieval Academy meeting at the University of Notre Dame (March 14-17, 2024) will feature two sessions celebrating “New Scholarship.” The sessions will take place during the regularly scheduled MAA program and will provide an opportunity for us to learn about each other’s recent publications or other projects and to celebrate these research milestones together. If you would like to participate in this new session, in which individual members will briefly present (ca. 5-10 mins) a major publication or publicly available project, please reach out to Fiona Griffiths (fgriffit@stanford.edu) by December 15, 2023 with an expression of interest and brief description of the work. All members with recently completed major projects are warmly invited to participate. Notifications will be sent out by January 15, 2024.

We are very pleased to announce that the first annual Fellows Research Awards have been granted to Bermet Nishanova (University of California, Irvine) to support her research in Uzbekistan on Islamic Textiles in Central Asia, and Sara Victoria Torres, a freelance editor, to support her project “Demanding Peace During the Hundred Years War.” Congratulations!

The Fellows Research Awards of $5,000 each are made possible by the generosity of the Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America, who both fund and administer these annual Awards. The MAA is exceedingly grateful to the Fellows for their support of these early-career scholars.

Join the GSC!

The Medieval Academy of America is currently accepting self-nominations for vacancies opening up on the Graduate Student Committee (GSC) for the 2024-2026 term. The GSC comprises six members appointed for a two-year term on a rotating basis. There are three openings to be filled. Self-nominations are open to all graduate students, worldwide, who are members of the MAA and have at least two years remaining in their program of study.

The GSC represents and promotes the participation of graduate student medievalists within the MAA and the broader academic community. In addition to fostering international and interdisciplinary exchange, the GSC is dedicated to providing guidance on research, teaching, publishing, professionalization, funding, and employment, as well as offering a forum for the expression of the concerns and interests of our colleagues. Our responsibilities, thus, include organizing pre-professionalizing panels and social events annually at ICMS Kalamazoo, the MAA Annual Meeting, and IMC Leeds. We also run a successful and popular Mentorship Program that pairs graduate students with faculty to discuss any aspect of our profession such as teaching, publishing, finding a successful work/life balance, maneuvering the job market, and more. In addition, we seek to bring together graduate students through virtual communities such as the growing Graduate Student Group on the MAA website, Facebook, Twitter, the med-grad listserv, and a regular newsletter.

GSC members are asked to attend the Committee’s annual business meeting at Kalamazoo (either in person or virtually) during their term and to communicate regularly with the group via email and virtually. Ideal applicants are expected to work well both independently and as part of a team in a collaborative environment. Previous experience with organizing conference panels and social events, exposure and/or interest in podcasting, as well as facility with social and digital media are not required, but may be a benefit.

Interested applicants should submit the following by January 15, 2024:

– The Self-Nomination Form;

– A brief CV (2 pages maximum) uploaded as part of the Nomination Form;

– A recommendation letter from your faculty advisor, sent to the Executive Director of the Medieval Academy by mail or (preferably) as a PDF attachment (on letterhead with signature), to LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org.

New members will be selected by the MAA Council (in consultation with the current GSC) at the 2024 Annual Meeting in Notre Dame, IN. If you have any questions, please contact us at gsc@themedievalacademy.org and GSC Chair Will Beattie.

MATCHING CHALLENGE:

Help ensure the future of the Medieval Academy of America! 
As we look towards our Centennial in 2025, we must also begin planning for our second century. By contributing to this Matching Challenge in 2024, you can double the impact of your donation, helping to ensure that the MAA can continue its important support of scholars, scholarship, and expanded programming to fulfill our vision of a stronger, more inclusive Medieval Studies. A major anonymous donation will serve as the source of the Challenge matches, helping to solidify the future of the MAA as it approaches its centennial year. This pool of funds will match every dollar donated to the priority purposes identified below up to a total of $150,000.

Medieval Studies, along with higher education in general, faces grave challenges now and in the foreseeable future. As the foremost organization in the world promoting scholarship and knowledge of the Middle Ages, the Medieval Academy of America is determined to address challenges that border on becoming existential threats with new programs, a broader, more inclusive membership base, and educational outreach that will complement and strengthen its ongoing mission. As it approaches the celebration of its Centennial in 2025, the MAA seeks to secure gifts and grants that will help underwrite its renewed agenda. As a part of this action and thanks to an anonymous major gift, it is launching a Matching Challenge fund-raising drive. Donors to this effort will have the satisfaction of knowing that their gifts to specific priority programs will have twice the impact. Even as we continue to publish the highest-quality scholarship in the pages of Speculum and support research and teaching throughout the field, we are looking to expand programming and support in 2024 and beyond. Your generous contribution will help support ongoing and innovative priorities:

Centennial Fund : Donations to the Centennial Fund will support grants to individuals and institutions nationwide that promote and publicize medieval art, music, and theater during our Centennial year.

Mentoring Fund : In 2022, the Mentoring Program brought more than a dozen scholars from underserved demographics together for remote and in-person mentoring focusing on grant-writing, dissertation abstracts, and conference proposals. In 2023, the program was entirely remote, but with additional funding we hope to conduct a fully in-person summer mentoring program in 2024 and beyond.

MedievALLists Fund : Donations to this Fund will help to make the MAA more inclusive and to strengthen the field by supporting medievalists working beyond the tenure track. Here, too, the need is increasing as more scholars are obliged to work on short-term contracts with no benefits. Expanding support for scholars working beyond the tenure track is a critical priority.

Endowment : Donations to our Endowment support many of our other grants, fellowships, and programs and are crucial for the long-term fiscal stability of the Medieval Academy of America.

We have already secured commitments of more than $36,000 (that’s $72,000 after the match) from members of the Council, several former Presidents, and generous supporters. But we need your contribution in order to meet our goal. With your help, we can continue and expand our work: supporting medievalists and Medieval Studies in North America and beyond.

Visit the Matching Challenge website to donate securely by credit card to the Matching Fund(s) of your choice. If you prefer to donate by check, you may do so using the form and return envelope you will receive by US Mail in the coming weeks. Please note that only donations to these particular funds are eligible for the Match.

Thank you!

Robin Fleming, President of the Medieval Academy of America

p.s. donate by Dec. 31 to double your impact!

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.

The Inclusivity and Diversity Research Grant

The Inclusivity and Diversity Research Grant of up to $3,000 will be granted annually to a scholar, at any stage in their career, who seeks to pursue innovative research that will broaden the scope of medieval studies. Projects that focus on non-European regions or topics under the Inclusivity and Diversity Committee’s purview such as race, class, disability, gender, religion, or sexuality are particularly welcomed. The grant prioritizes applicants who are students, ECRs, or non-tenured. Click here for more information. (Deadline 31 December 2023)

Belle Da Costa Greene Award

The Belle Da Costa Greene Award of $2,000 will be granted annually to a medievalist of color for research and travel. The award may be used to visit archives, attend conferences, or to facilitate writing and research. The award will be granted on the basis of the quality of the proposed project, the applicant’s budgetary needs (as expressed by a submitted budget and in the project narrative), and the estimation of the ways in which the award will facilitate the applicant’s research and contribute to the field. Special consideration will be given to graduate students, emerging junior scholars, adjunct, and unaffiliated scholars. Click here for more information. Click here to make a donation in support of the Greene Award. (Deadline 15 February 2024)

Olivia Remie Constable Award

Four Olivia Remie Constable Awards of $1,500 each will be granted to emerging junior faculty, adjunct or unaffiliated scholars (broadly understood: post-doctoral, pre-tenure) for research and travel. Click here for more information. (Deadline 15 February 2024)

MAA Dissertation Grants:

The nine annual Medieval Academy Dissertation Grants support advanced graduate students who are writing Ph.D. dissertations on medieval topics. The $2,000 grants help defray research expenses. Click here for more information. (Deadline 15 February 2024)

Schallek Awards

The five annual Schallek awards support graduate students conducting doctoral research in any relevant discipline dealing with late-medieval Britain (ca. 1350-1500). The $2,000 awards help defray research expenses. Click here for more information. (Deadline 15 February 2024)

MAA/GSC Grant for Innovation in Community-Building and Professionalization

The MAA/GSC Grant(s) will be awarded to an individual or graduate student group from one or more universities. The purpose of this grant is to stimulate new and innovative efforts that support pre-professionalization, encourage communication and collaboration across diverse groups of graduate students, and build communities amongst graduate student medievalists. Click here for more information. (Deadline 15 February 2024)

Applicants for these and other MAA programs must be members in good standing of the Medieval Academy. Please contact the Executive Director for more information about these and other MAA programs.

The Medieval Academy of America’s Mentoring Program Committee is excited to announce the 2024 Summer Research and Professional Development Workshop for PhD-track students. This program is designed to foster the growth of essential skills and mentorship relationships, and improve the educational experiences for graduate students in fields intersecting with Medieval Studies. Our primary goals are to facilitate the development of successful dissertation projects, foster networking and community-building, and improve competitiveness for grants and academic positions.

In Zoom sessions over the summer, and then at the in-person event, workshop leaders will help student participants learn about the range of available grants, develop successful strategies for securing these funding opportunities, and begin to work with them to produce their own grant proposals (with specific attention on identifying the broader contributions of their research, developing budgets, and proposing viable schedules). The in-person event for US, Canadian, and Mexican participants will take place at the University of California at Berkeley on August 1-4 (participants from other regions will join via Zoom).

We are accepting applications for twelve student participants and two workshop leaders, all of whom will receive stipends and, for those attending the culminating event in person, travel and lodging funds. Click here for more information and to apply.

Are you planning an exhibit, symposium, performance, workshop, or other event in 2025, our Centennial year? Apply for a Centennial Grant!

In celebration of its upcoming 2025 Centennial, the Medieval Academy of America is 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. For performances and lectures, the event must be scheduled for 2025. Educational resources must be open access and meet the MAA’s Standards for Web Publication. Applications in the first round (for which five awards will be granted) must be submitted by 15 December 2023.

Click here for more information and to apply!

Friday, December 8, 2023 at 12pm-1:30pm EST

Denva Gallant, Assistant Professor of Art History, Rice University

“The Black Body as Site of Conversion: Race and Ethnicity in Late Medieval Italy.”

How might we understand the racialization in medieval Italy or ethnicity as a meaningful and applicable categorization during the period and place? While scholars such as Nicole Lopez-Jantzen have applied racial concepts to the study of identity formation in the early Middle Ages, the Italian peninsula during the later Middle Ages still requires thorough treatment. In this essay, intended for an audience of scholars who are not already experts in this area but who want to address themes of medieval ethnicity and/or race in their research or teaching, I trace the evolution of the study difference and representation on the Italian peninsula. While this essay will serve more as a reference guide than scholarly critique, it will hopefully speak to new avenues of research.

Respondent: Dr. Pamela Patton, Director of the Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University

Click here for more information and to register.