The Medieval Academy Blog

I am very pleased to report the results of the recent governance election:

President: Sara Lipton (History, Stony Brook Univ.) [Congratulations!]
1st Vice-President: Peggy McCracken (French and Comparative Literature, Univ. of Michigan) [Congratulations!]
2nd Vice-President: Haruko Momma (English, New York Univ.)

Council:
Alka Patel (Art History, Univ. of California, Irvine)
Michael Ryan (History, Univ. of New Mexico)
Krista Sue-Lo Twu (English, Univ. of Minnesota Duluth)
Elizabeth Dospel Williams (Curator, Byzantine Collection, Dumbarton Oaks)

Nominating Committee:
Chair (appointed by MAA President): Fiona Griffiths (Stanford Univ.,
Elected members:
Nicholas Paul (History, Fordham Univ.)
Kristina Richardson (History, Univ. of Virginia)

My thanks to all who stood for election and to all who voted. I very much look forward to working with these new Councilors and Nominating Committee members when they take office in March.

– Lisa

The 99th annual meeting of the Medieval Academy of America takes place this year on March 14–16, 2024, at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. The Medieval Institute will be serving as your host and now welcome you to join us. Registration for the conference is now available here, where you will also find direct links to the conference program, local hotels offering discounted rates, and a general overview of conference activities. The discounted hotel rates for attendees remain in effect only through February 13, 2024, and online registration closes February 16, 2024, so we urge you to register soon. The conference will be entirely in person, though the plenary lectures and some other events will also be live-streamed. We look forward to seeing you in South Bend!

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.

Applications are due on 22 January for participants and 2 February for workshop leaders.

The 2024 Election of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America closed on Monday, 2 January. The results have been certified by the President of the Fellows and the Fellows Nominating Committee, and the new Fellows have been informed of their election.

We are very pleased to introduce the Fellows Class of 2024:

Fellows:
Richard Abels
Robert Bork
Susan Boynton
Samantha Kelly
Deeana Klepper
William Paden
Joëlle Rollo-Koster

Corresponding Fellows:
Earl Jeffrey Richards
Francesco Stella
Hiroshi Takayama
Karl Ubl

The chief purpose of the Fellowship is to honor major long-term scholarly achievement within the field of Medieval Studies. Fellows are nominated by MAA members and elected by the Fellows. To learn more about the Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America, please see the Fellows section of our website.

Please join us as we honor these colleagues at the annual Induction Ceremony for new Fellows during the Fellows Plenary Session at the upcoming Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America on Saturday, 16 March at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana.

We are very pleased to announce that the 2024-2025 Schallek Fellowship has been awarded to Morgan McMinn (History, West Virginia University), to support her dissertation research. In her words:

“My Ph.D. dissertation, ‘Community: A Study of the Interpersonal Relationships of Monks and Nuns in the Late Medieval Diocese of Lincoln,’ explores the interdependencies of monks and nuns in six religious houses across the Lincoln Diocese in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries: Catesby, Godstow, Legbourn, Croyland, Peterborough, Ramsey. My dissertation examines how the religious’ social network influenced interclaustral bonds. Analyzing these monastic relations with lay society and episcopal administration enables us to better comprehend the nuances of religious daily life and the forces acting upon it. I investigate these connections through close textual analysis balanced with distant reading methods facilitated by a prosopographical database that I am building on the Lincoln diocese. My dissertation adds to our understanding of the intricacies of monastic life, the actors within it, and their ties to each other, the laity, and the episcopacy.”

The Schallek Fellowship provides a one-year grant of $30,000 to support Ph.D. dissertation research in any relevant discipline dealing with late-medieval Britain (ca. 1350-1500). The Fellowship is adjudicated by the MAA’s Schallek Committee and is jointly sponsored by the Medieval Academy and The Richard III Society-American Branch, made possible by a gift to the Richard III Society from William B. and Maryloo Spooner Schallek.

We are very pleased to announce the following Travel Grants, awarded to medievalists who are not in full-time faculty positions, or are adjuncts without access to institutional funding, to support travel to conferences to present their work:

Jesse S. Arlen, “The Reception of Evagrius in Armenian Monastic Schools,” North American Patristics Society Annual Meeting, Chicago, May 23-25, 2024.

Darren Barber, “A Brief History of the Term schola up to the Ninth Century,” Medieval Academy Annual Meeting, University of Notre dame, South Bend, Indiana, Marrch 14-16, 2024

John Burden, “Variations in Names, Dates, and Places in the Early Manuscripts of Gratian’s Decretum,” Seventeenth International Congress of Medieval Canon Law (ICMCL), Canterbury, UK, July 7-13, 2024

Jonathan Fruoco, “Bridging Worlds: A Mythocritical Exploration of The Conference of the Birds and The Parliament of Fowls in Cross-Cultural Translation,” New Chaucer Society Congress, Pasadena, California, July 15-18, 2024

Ugo Carlo Luigi Mondini, “How to process innovation in Byzantine literature,” Medieval Academy Annual Meeting, University of Notre dame, South Bend, Indiana, Marrch 14-16, 2024

Hope Deejune Williard, “Dictation in Early Medieval Letter Writing,” 59th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, Michigan, 9-11 May 2024

The Medieval Academy of America invites applications for the following grants. Please note that applicants must be members in good standing 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)

Please contact the Executive Director for more information about these and other MAA programs.

All graduate student members of the Academy are invited and encouraged to apply to serve as members of the Graduate Student Committee (three vacancies serving two-year terms, beginning at the close of the Annual Meeting). This opportunity is open to all graduate students worldwide who are members of the Medieval Academy and have at least two years remaining in their programs of study. If you are interested:

1) Fill out the nomination form found here.

2) At the end of the form, use the link to upload a brief CV (2 pages maximum);

3) Ask your faculty adviser to submit a recommendation letter by mail or email attachment (PDF on letterhead with signature) to the Executive Director.

These steps must be completed by 15 January. The new committee members will be selected by the Academy’s Committee on Committees in consultation with the current members of the GSC and confirmed by the Academy Council at the Annual Meeting.

Organize Your Research: A Workshop on Tools and Methods: In this virtual workshop the GSC invites you to delve into the details of research in Medieval Studies. By combining an introduction to Zotero – a software for managing bibliographical data – with input from three recent authors on their working processes, we hope to equip the participants with practical tools and inspiration for research. If you are going back and forth with structuring your dissertation; feel overwhelmed by your research materials; and are happy to learn from the personal experience of experts in our field – this is the workshop for you! Featuring Gregory Bryda, Akash Kumar, Adrien Palladino, and Caro Bratnober.

Please join us online at 10AM (EST), January 9th. To register, click here. For more information please visit the GSC facebook page.

Call for Session Proposals
Medieval Technologies of Knowledge/Medieval Knowledge through Technology
2025 AHA Annual Meeting, New York City

The Medieval Academy of America (MAA) cordially invites proposals for sessions at the forthcoming annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New York City, January 3-5, 2025.

This year, the Medieval Academy aims to co-sponsor sessions that gravitate around the timely theme of “Medieval Technologies of Knowledge/Medieval Knowledge through Technology.” This theme is envisioned to be broad and inclusive, sparking interest among MAA members and a wider audience. We are particularly interested in panels that explore various facets of this theme, such as:

• Technologies of Knowledge in the Middle Ages: Investigating lesser-known or emerging technological advancements of the medieval period. Understanding the role and conception of technologies in medieval societies. Delving into the methods and tools used for knowledge dissemination and storage in medieval times.

• Understanding the Middle Ages Using AI and Other Technologies: Understanding the Middle Ages using current technological advancements. Exploring innovative ideas and perspectives that challenge traditional understandings of the era. Evaluating how new technologies will impact the future of the field.

We are open to various forms of session programming and encourage members to think beyond traditional paper panels. Proposals for roundtables, lightning talks, workshops, digital labs, working sessions, and other innovative and inclusive formats of knowledge-sharing are highly welcomed.

We particularly encourage session proposals from scholars across diverse identity positions and academic ranks and affiliations, including graduate students and independent scholars. Proposals that focus on sources, geographies, and populations under-represented in traditional medieval studies are also highly encouraged.

The committee is available for feedback on draft session proposals. Please contact us at ahacommittee@themedievalacademy.org. Additionally, MAA members can receive feedback on proposals during the review process.

How to Submit a Session Proposal

Session proposal submissions for MAA and AHA co-sponsorship involve a two-stage process:

1) Members of the Medieval Academy submit session proposals to the MAA’s AHA Program Committee via the online submission form by 11:59 p.m., February 1, 2024.

2) Upon approval by the MAA’s AHA Committee, session organizers will be notified by February 11 and will then be responsible for submitting the proposal to the AHA before the deadline of 11:59 p.m., February 15, 2024, indicating that the session has the sponsorship of the Medieval Academy of America.

For more details, please refer to FAQ: Organizing MAA/AHA Sessions