MAA News – MAA @ Leeds

If you’re going to be at the Leeds International Medieval Congress this year, please join us on Tuesday, 7 July, 19.00-20.00 (Session 901) for the annual Medieval Academy Lecture, to be delivered by Fiona Griffiths (Department of History, Stanford University), “Timing, Temporalities, and the Cleric’s Wife.” Afterwards, join Prof. Griffiths and MAA governance and staff members for the Medieval Academy’s open-bar wine reception.

In addition, the Speculum staff are delighted to present a roundtable: “How to Publish in Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies.” All are welcome, especially younger and international scholars. It will be Session 1730 on the last day of the Congress: Thursday, July 9, from 2:15 to 3:45 p.m. The presenters are Managing Editor Ben Weil, Editorial Board member Gregor Kalas, and former Editorial Board member Michael Bailey. Come one, come all!

We hope to see you there!

Posted in MAA Newsletter | Leave a comment

MAA News – CARA Call for Executive Committee Nominations

The Medieval Academy of America’s Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA) invites nominations to fill two upcoming vacancies on its Executive Committee. CARA strives to assist institutions and individual medievalists in meeting the challenges that face medieval studies in the classroom, the library, and other institutional settings locally and nationally.

Members of the Executive Committee serve four-year terms; in addition to working with the CARA Chair on programming, outreach, and curricular initiatives, each member serves on two of CARA’s four subcommittees responsible for the CARA Teaching Award, the CARA Robert Kendrick Service Prize, the CARA Regional Conference Grant, and the MAA-CARA Graduate Student Summer Scholarships.

Service on the CARA Executive Committee is open to all members in good standing of the Medieval Academy of America, who may nominate themselves or be nominated by another individual. Given our goals to have regional representation on the Executive Committee, we are particularly encouraging medievalists with experience or appointments in the southwest, west, or on the west coast to apply. Nominations should include the following:

1. Name of nominee;

2. Nominee’s institutional or professional affiliation (including that of independent scholar);

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

In accordance with CARA’s Policies and Procedures, nominations will be accepted until 1 November 2026 and reviewed thereafter by the CARAE xecutive Committee, which will forward its recommended candidate for approval by the Medieval Academy’s Council. The term of service for new members will begin at the conclusion of CARA’s annual meeting at University of Toronto in April 2026. Please send nominations, as well as any questions or requests for further information, to the CARA Chair, Lauren Mancia (LaurenMancia@brooklyn.cuny.edu).

Posted in MAA Newsletter | Leave a comment

MAA News – Good News From Our Members

Ross Brann’s monograph Moses Maimonides: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2025) was a Finalist for the National Jewish Book Award in Sephardic Culture.

Lucy Sandler has been awarded an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters by her alma mater, Queens College.

Case Western Reserve University is delighted to announce the launch of their new program in Global Medieval Studies, administered through the Department of Art History and Art in collaboration with Classics, English, Modern Languages and Literatures, and Music departments. The Graduate Certificate in Global Medieval Studies offers students the opportunity to pursue rigorous interdisciplinary study of the medieval world. The program, free for degree-seeking graduate students in any of the participating departments, is geared towards those who wish to pursue the certificate as a complement to their primary field of study. The program leverages established partnerships with the Cleveland Museum of Art and existing performance ensembles. Each year, the Department of Art History and Art sponsors lectures by distinguished scholars and curators of medieval and Byzantine art, while the Graduate Association for Medieval Studies (GAMS) organizes multiple events every semester. The program is further enriched by robust colloquia hosted by Music and English departments, which regularly bring prominent medievalists to campus. For questions, please contact Prof. Elina Gertsman, the program’s director, at exg152@case.edu or visit https://arthistory.case.edu/graduate-certificate-in-global-medieval-studies/

Finally, there’s good news for all of us as the previously-withdrawn NEH grants are beginning to be restored. Congratulations on this victory!

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

Posted in MAA Newsletter | Leave a comment

MAA News – MAA Office Holiday Closure

The Medieval Academy office will be closed on Friday, July 3 for the Fourth of July holiday.

Posted in MAA Newsletter | Leave a comment

Jobs For Medievalists

Bard College seeks a full-time Administrative Coordinator to provide crucial administrative and logistical support for a Mellon grant-funded project titled “Uses and Abuses of History.” The project is part of Mellon Foundation’s Humanities for All Times initiative, which supports newly developed curricula that instruct students in methods of humanities practice and demonstrate those methods’ relevance to broader social justice pursuits. An ideal candidate for this position is a recent graduate who shares our commitment to the project and is enthusiastic about contributing.

This position has a 3-year term.

About “Uses and Abuses of History”:

https://www.bard.edu/news/bard-135-million-grant-humanities-curricular-innovation-project-mellon-foundation-2026-04-23

About Bard:

Bard College’s main campus is in Annandale-on-Hudson, N.Y., with 1,900 undergraduate students; the College also includes multiple graduate programs. The 1,000-acre campus sits along the Hudson River and offers the Fisher Performing Arts Center, and Hessel Museum of Art, and is the home of the Bard Prison Initiative, the largest college-degree-granting prison education program in the U.S. The Bard Network also includes several Bard High School Early Colleges across the country as well as international campuses and partnerships. Bard College is a private institution working in the public interest. Bard faculty and staff lead their students by example, building upon the existing network of boundary-breaking programs focused on rethinking who can and should be included in a liberal arts education.

Responsibilities:

  • Organizing the workshops
  • Drafting and disseminating the call for regrants
  • Organizing the regranting and course proposal review committees
  • Ordering library reserve materials to support courses
  • Managing summer housing and other tasks for the summer research fellowships
  • Promoting events
  • Processing invoices
  • Assisting with report preparation
  • Other duties as required

Qualifications:

  • Bachelor’s degree required
  • Experience working in an administrative capacity required
  • Excellent written and verbal communication skills required
  • Exceptional organizational skills a must
  • Experience with Excel, budget management, and reporting preferred but we are open to training a motivated candidate who is eager to learn 

To Apply:

Please provide a cover letter, resume, and the contact information for three professional references to Interfolio by following this link:  INTERFOLIO LINK.

Compensation: $65,000 annually

This salary range reflects the College’s good faith and reasonable estimate of the compensation for the position at the time of the job posting. Salary decisions are dependent on several factors including but not limited to market and organizational considerations, experience, and qualifications of a selected candidate as well as internal and external equity.

Benefits Overview:

We are pleased to offer our full-time employees an excellent benefit package which includes; multiple health insurance options; TIAA retirement plans; generous vacation, sick, and personal time; and more. To learn more about employee benefits and eligibility at Bard College, please visit https://www.bard.edu/humanresources/benefits/.

Equal Employment Opportunity Statement:

Bard is an equal-opportunity employer, and we welcome applications from those who contribute to our diversity. All qualified candidates will receive consideration for employment without regard to race, color, religion, sex, mental, or physical disability, age, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, familial status, veteran status, or genetic information.

Bard is committed to providing access, equal opportunity, and reasonable accommodation for all individuals in employment practices, services, programs, and activities.

Posted in Jobs for Medievalists | Leave a comment

MAA News – MAA @ Leeds

If you’re going to be at the Leeds International Medieval Congress this year, please join us on Tuesday, 7 July, 19.00-20.00 (Session 901) for the annual Medieval Academy Lecture, to be delivered by Fiona Griffiths (Department of History, Stanford University), “Timing, Temporalities, and the Cleric’s Wife.” Afterwards, join Prof. Griffiths and MAA governance and staff members for the Medieval Academy’s open-bar wine reception.

In addition, the Speculum staff are delighted to present a roundtable: “How to Publish in Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies.” All are welcome, especially younger and international scholars. It will be Session 1730 on the last day of the Congress: Thursday, July 9, from 2:15 to 3:45 p.m. The presenters are Managing Editor Ben Weil, Editorial Board member Gregor Kalas, and former Editorial Board member Michael Bailey. Come one, come all!

We hope to see you there!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

MAA News – Good News From Our Members

Sarah McNamer (Georgetown Univ.), Jamie Kreiner (UCLA), and Nicole Rice (St. John’s Univ.) have all recently been awarded Guggenheim Fellowships.

Monica Green has been given the honor of addressing the American Association for the History of Medicine (AAHM) meeting, the first medievalist in 30 years to do so. The announcement for the talk is posted here, on the AAHM program page: https://aahm2026.sched.com/event/2GnPs. The title of the talk is: “Straining the History of Infectious Diseases: Europe’s Two Black Deaths.”

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

Posted in MAA Newsletter | Leave a comment

MAA News – Upcoming MAA Webinars and Workshops

Writing Like Monks and Nuns: a Writing Community by the Graduate Student Committee
Tuesday, June 9th, 3pm EDT

“He who does not know how to write does not think that it is a labor. Three fingers write, the whole body labors. Whoever has read this book, pray for me”. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 9561, fol. 81v.)

Does this scribal plea—found by Thijs Porck (Universiteit Leiden)—resonate with your writing practice? Crying out in pain from an eighth century copy of Gregory’s Pastoral Care this scribe asks for an intercession familiar to dissertation writers, “pray for me”. Clacking away, hunched over a computer screen we toil physically as well.

Toil alone no longer! The Graduate Student Committee of the MAA invites you to our writing community pilot, Writing Like Monks and Nuns.

Informed by research on the benefits of writing groups for early career researchers and inspired by medieval writing practices, we aim to create a space of accountability, community, and fun.

Each 75-minute writing session begins with a medieval writing warm-up, followed by dedicated writing time and a short debrief. Attendees will be entered in a drawing to win a free year of MAA membership. 

Questions can be directed to organizers Camila Roxana Marcone (camila.marcone@yale.edu) and Summer Block Lizer (summer.lizer@cgu.edu)

Dates and times
June 9 – 3pm EST
June 23 – 3pm EST

Register here to receive the zoom link.

Posted in MAA Newsletter | Leave a comment

Digital Scriptorium Workshops on Linked Open Data and SPARQL

Digital Scriptorium (DS) is pleased to offer a series of online workshops exploring Linked Open Data and the use of the query language SPARQL in the context of the DS Catalog Wikibase. Workshops will be led by L.P. Coladangelo, DS Catalog Project and Data Manager, and are scheduled for Thursdays in July from 1pm to 2:30pm ET over Zoom. The workshop series is intended for those with beginning to intermediate knowledge of SPARQL. Descriptions follow:

July 2: Introduction to Linked Open Data and Wikibase
Participants will be introduced to the concept and structure of Linked Data in the context of Wikibase technology, including Resource Description Framework (RDF), triple syntax, and human readable serialization formats like Turtle (TTL). The workshop will also give an overview of the DS data model and way it is implemented in Wikibase. We will conclude by talking about important vocabularies and ontologies that help structure Linked Open Data (LOD).

July 9: SPARQL Basics
Participants will apply what they learned in the previous workshop to begin drafting basic SPARQL queries. Concepts to be explored will be the use of prefixes, SELECT and WHERE clauses, the assignment of variables, and the use of triples to define desired graph patterns.

July 16: Modifying SPARQL Queries
Having learned to write basic queries in the previous workshop, participants will now learn how to build on and modify queries through additional clauses for actions like filtering, sorting, grouping, and limiting. 

July 23: Exploring Graph Patterns and Property Paths
After learning methods to modify queries from the previous week, participants will explore more advanced ways to query data, including alternative graph paths, variable value assignments through BIND and VALUES clauses, and an introduction to nested queries.

July 30: Extending and Combining Linked Data
In this final workshop, participants will build on their previous workshop experiences to begin using complex clauses to explore existing data and generate new datasets. Participants will also be introduced to methods for combining data from disparate datasets through federated querying and tools such as OpenRefine.

Thanks to funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the series is free and open to the public. To learn more and register, click here. Please note that space is limited!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Jobs For Medievalists

The Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, invites applications for two
grant-funded Postdoctoral Fellowships at the Dictionary of Old English.

Postdoctoral Fellow, Editorial, Dictionary of Old English
The Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, invites applications for a grant-
funded, two-year Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Dictionary of Old English.

The successful candidate will have a PhD in English, Medieval Studies, or a comparable
discipline by the time of appointment. Applicants must have expertise in Old English
language, familiarity with the corpus of Old English, and excellent research ability.
Proficiency in Latin and experience with Old English paleography are essential, and
familiarity with basic lexicographical principles is highly desirable. The successful
candidate will work with the editors in drafting entries for the Dictionary of Old English
and will also pursue an independent research project of their choice under the
supervision of the editors.

This position offers a rare opportunity to participate in team research in the humanities
and therefore requires the ability to work well with other members of the project.

Salary: CAD $50,000 per year

Application instructions: Applicants are directed to send the following materials
to admin.doe@utoronto.ca by June 12, 2026:

* a cover letter, which includes a brief description of the individual research the
applicant proposes to undertake at the DOE
* an up-to-date CV
* the names of two academic references, to be contacted for shortlisted candidates

Candidates selected for interviews will be asked how they would support and contribute
to the University’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Supervisors: Drs. Robert Getz and Stephen Pelle

Expected start date: October 1, 2026 (or soon thereafter)

Term: two years (non-renewable)
FTE: 1.0

The normal hours of work are 40 hours per week for a full-time postdoctoral fellow,
recognizing that the needs of the employee’s research and training and the needs of the
supervisors’ research program may require flexibility in the performance of the
employee’s duties and hours of work.

Postdoctoral Fellowship, DEfOE, Dictionary of Old English
The Centre for Medieval Studies, University of Toronto, invites applications for a grant-
funded Postdoctoral Fellowship based at the Dictionary of Old English (DOE), for DEfOE
(Data Engineering for Old English), a partnership between the DOE and the Ansund
project at Trinity College Dublin.

The successful candidate will have a PhD in English, Medieval Studies, or a comparable
discipline by the time of appointment. Applicants must have expertise in Old English
language, familiarity with the corpus of Old English, and excellent research ability.
Proficiency in Latin and experience with Old English paleography are highly desirable.
Familiarity with computational methods (such as text processing, data cleaning and
transformation, etc.) may also be an advantage.

The successful candidate will work with the DOE and Ansund staff on a multifaceted
project aimed at updating the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, improving the utility of
the DOE’s List of Texts, and facilitating alignment between DOE texts and variant
manuscript versions. The position will be based in Toronto, with some training taking
place in Dublin during the first year of the fellowship.

This position offers a rare opportunity to participate in international team research in
the humanities and therefore requires the ability to work well with other members of
the DOE and Ansund projects.

Salary: CAD $50,000 per year

Application instructions: Applicants are directed to send the following materials
to admin.doe@utoronto.ca by June 19, 2026:

* a cover letter
* an up-to-date CV
* the names of two academic references, to be contacted for shortlisted candidates

Candidates selected for interviews will be asked how they would support and contribute
to the University’s commitment to equity, diversity, and inclusion.

Supervisor: Dr. Stephen Pelle

Expected start date: October 1 2026

Term: two years (with a possibility of an additional year)

FTE: 1.0
The normal hours of work are 40 hours per week for a full-time postdoctoral fellow (pro-
rated for those holding a partial appointment), recognizing that the needs of the
employee’s research and training and the needs of the supervisor’s research program
may require flexibility in the performance of the employee’s duties and hours of work.
Application materials may be sent to admin.doe@utoronto.ca. Applicants should
specify which postdoctoral position (editorial [deadline June 12] or DEfOE [deadline
June 19]) they wish to be considered for. Candidates who wish to apply to both
positions should submit separate applications for each.

Employment as a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto is covered by the
terms of the CUPE 3902 Unit 5 Collective Agreement. This job is posted in accordance
with the CUPE 3902 Unit 5 Collective Agreement.

Posted in Jobs for Medievalists | Leave a comment