The Medieval Academy Blog

Dear Colleagues,

As my term as President of the Medieval Academy of America is coming to a close, I look back at a year that was challenging in many respects. You all know what these challenges were and are. Our Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis and I have addressed many of them in our columns and direct messages to you. We started new initiatives and offered a number of targeted webinars (all archived on our website) in response to some of these challenges. All of us also had to reinvent ourselves as virtual beings for this past year and probably for many months to come. Everything – teaching, research, communicating, just doing our jobs and caring for our families – became more difficult. But all this time you never lost sight of what matters, so at this moment I want to focus on the positive aspects of our profession. Yes, Medieval Studies are embattled, yes, we seem to be an endangered species, but we also are extremely resilient, productive, and versatile. Take a look at the fantastic program of the upcoming MAA annual meeting, take a look at the Kalamazoo and Leeds programs, and you can see the enthusiasm, curiosity, and persistence that keep us medievalists going. It’s impossible to give even a sampling of the variety of topics we see here and of the wide range of perspectives that you have adopted in order to explore and understand the many centuries that make up the middle ages. The latest issue of Speculum alone has over seventy book reviews, testifying not only to the creativity of the book authors but also to the generosity of the reviewers, who take their colleagues’ work seriously and help us choose among the hundreds of titles that appear every year. For our time is limited. This has become clear to me like never before during this pandemic. I am looking forward to seeing many of your virtual selves at the annual meeting next week and then in person at UVA in 2022.

Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski
President, Medieval Academy of America

Registration for the 96th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America is now closed.

The meeting is hosted by Indiana University, Bloomington, and will take place entirely online, from 15-18 April 2021. The program is available here.

We wish we could welcome you in person to Bloomington, but we look forward to an interesting and exciting conference!

Please email any questions to maa2021@indiana.edu.

The 97th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will take place on the campus of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. The meeting is jointly hosted by the Medieval Academy of America and the Program in Medieval Studies at the University of Virginia, with the generous support and collaboration of colleagues from Virginia Tech, the College of William & Mary, and Washington and Lee University. The conference program will feature a diverse range of sessions highlighting innovative scholarship across the many disciplines contributing to medieval studies.

The Program Committee invites proposals for papers on all topics and in all disciplines and periods of medieval studies and medievalism studies. Any member of the Medieval Academy may submit a paper proposal; others may submit proposals as well but must become members in order to present papers at the meeting. Special consideration will be given to individuals whose field would not normally involve membership in the Medieval Academy. We are particularly interested in receiving submissions from those working outside of traditional academic positions, including independent scholars, emeritus or adjunct faculty, university administrators, those working in academic-adjacent institutions (libraries, archives, museums, scholarly societies, or cultural research centers), editors and publishers, and other fellow medievalists.

Plenary addresses will be delivered by Roland Betancourt, Professor of Art History, University of California, Irvine; Seeta Chaganti, Professor of English, University of California, Davis; and Thomas E. A. Dale, Professor of Art History, University of Wisconsin-Madison, and incoming president of the Academy.

Click here for the full Call for Papers

The latest issue of Speculum is now available on the University of Chicago Press Journals website.

To access your members-only journal subscription, log in to the MAA website using the username and password associated with your membership (contact us at info@themedievalacademy.org if you have forgotten either), and choose “Speculum Online” from the “Speculum” menu. As a reminder, your MAA membership provides exclusive online access to all issues of Speculum in full text, PDF, and e-Book editions—at no additional charge.

Speculum, Volume 96, Number 2 (April 2021)

Articles

Magical Charaktêres in the Carolingian World: A Ninth-Century Charm in MS Vat. lat. 5359 and Its Broader Cultural Context
Ildar Garipzanov

Inventing Apostolic Impression Relics in Medieval Rome
Erik Inglis

Tales of the Living Dead: Dealing with Doubt in Medieval English Law
Elizabeth Papp Kamali

Eve, Mary, and Martha: Paintings for the Humiliati Nuns at Viboldone
Julia I. Miller

Book Reviews
This issue of Speculum features more than 70 book reviews, including:

Christopher Abram, Evergreen Ash: Ecology and Catastrophe in Old Norse Myth and Literature
Reviewed by Michael Bintley

Jessica Barr, Intimate Reading: Textual Encounters in Medieval Women’s Visions and Vitae
Reviewed by Barbara Newman

G. W. Bowersock, The Crucible of Islam
Reviewed by Suleyman Dost

Richard K. Emmerson, Apocalypse Illuminated: The Visual Exegesis of Revelation in Medieval Illustrated Manuscripts
Reviewed by Jacqueline E. Jung

Ian Forrest, Trustworthy Men: How Inequality and Faith Made the Medieval Church
Reviewed by Fiona Somerset

Moses Maimonides, “On the Regimen of Health”: A New Parallel Arabic-English Translation, ed. and trans. Gerrit Bos, with critical editions of medieval Hebrew translations by Gerrit Bos and Latin translations by Michael R. McVaugh; and Moses Maimonides, “On the Elucidation of Some Symptoms and the Response to Them” (Formerly Known as “On the Causes of Symptoms”): A New Parallel Arabic-English Edition and Translation, with critical editions of the medieval Hebrew translations, ed. and trans. Gerrit Bos
Reviewed by Maud Kozodoy

John V. Tolan, Faces of Muhammad: Western Perceptions of the Prophet of Islam from the Middle Ages to Today
Reviewed by Nabil Matar

Jesús R. Velasco, Dead Voice: Law, Philosophy, and Fiction in the Iberian Middle Ages
Reviewed by Teofilo F. Ruiz

Eliza Zingesser, Stolen Song: How the Troubadours Became French
Reviewed by Wendy Pfeffer

MAA members also receive a 30% discount on all books and e-Books published by the University of Chicago Press, and a 20% discount on individual Chicago Manual of Style Online subscriptions. To access your discount code, log in to your MAA account, and click here. Please include this code while checking out from the University of Chicago Press website.

Sincerely,
The Medieval Academy of America

Even though we won’t be able to greet you in person this year at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, the Medieval Academy of America will have a strong presence at the virtual conference, with lectures, sessions, and roundtables focusing on the Global Middle Ages, DEI, and Anti-Racism (May 10-15).

1) The MAA plenary will be delivered by Sharon Kinoshita (Univ. of California–Santa Cruz), “Marco Polo and the Diversity of the Global Middle Ages” (pre-recorded and available to registrants May 10–15 and May 17–29). Two related sessions organized by Prof. Kinoshita on “Diversity in/and the Global Middle Ages” will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday at 11 AM (Sessions 124 and 179 respectively).

2) The Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA) roundtable on “Diversifying the Medieval Studies Syllabus” will take place Thursday at 3 PM (Session 291).

3) The Medieval Academy Graduate Student Committee roundtable on “Teaching the Middle Ages with Inclusivity and Diversity” will take place on Friday at 7 PM (Session 391).

4) With the Material Collective, the MAA is sponsoring a workshop titled “Race and the Medieval Academy of America,” led by Jax Gardner, Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership, Kalamazoo College. The workshop will take place on Saturday, at 3 PM (Session 436). Attendance will be limited to 20 participants.

All times are EDT. Click here for more information.

Tripoli, Bohemond VI or VII, gold bezant, 1251-87. Courtesy of Princeton University Numismatic Collection.

We are very pleased to be able to support the work of these scholars through our grant programs:

Belle da Costa Greene Award

Carolyn Quijano (Columbia University), “The Stranger and the Guest: Foreign Magistracies in the Medieval Italian City States, c. 1200-1475”

Olivia Remie Constable Awards

Dana Katz, “A Lost Mediterranean Landscape: The Parklands and Palaces of Medieval Sicily”

Joel Pattison, “Mediterranean trade and religious law: Genoa and the Maghrib”

Jennifer Solivan-Robles, “Virtues, Vices and Preachers: the Mnemonic Function of the Sculpted Programs in Medieval Cathedrals”

Alice Isabella Sullivan, “Mount Athos, Sinai, and the Danubian Lands: Patronage, Ideology, and Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages”

Dissertation Grants

Hope Emily Allen Dissertation Grant: Jessica E. Zisa (University of California, Santa Barbara), “Loving Bodies, Willing Minds: Affect, Cognition, and Gender in Late Medieval England”

John Boswell Dissertation Grant: Anabelle Gambert-Jouan (Yale University), “The Places of Sculpture in Medieval Italy and Iberia: Production, Diffusion, and Display of Wood ‘Deposition’ Groups”

Helen Maud Cam Dissertation Grant: Elizabeth Carolyn Cargile (Fordham University), “The Shape of History: Formal Variety and the Production of the Past in Twelfth-Century History Writing in England and Normandy (ca. 1120 – 1154)”

Grace Frank Dissertation Grant: Elena Gittleman (Bryn Mawr College), “Legacies of Ancient Theater in Middle Byzantine Visual Culture (ca.843 – 1204)”

Etienne Gilson Dissertation Grant: Jana Valesca Meyer (University of New Mexico), “Social Status, Occupation, and Health in Central European Medieval Societies: A Bioarchaeological Study with Special Attention to Societal Risks for Osteoarthritis in the Early and Late Middle Ages”

Frederic C. Lane Dissertation Grant: Mario Sassi (University of Pennsylvania), “Bedeviled Clergy and Demonic Roosters: The Supernatural in Trecento and Quattrocento Exempla”

Robert and Janet Lumiansky Dissertation Grant: Rachael Vause (University of Delaware), “The Cross and the Body in Early Medieval England”

E. K. Rand Dissertation Grant: Emma Le Pouesard (Columbia University), “Contested Sites of Feminine Agency: Ivory Grooming Implements in Late Medieval Europe”

Charles T. Wood Dissertation Grant: LauraLee Brott (University of Wisconsin-Madison), “The Holy Land within the Manuscript: Performative Cartography in BL Add. MS 10049”

Schallek Awards

Abigail Marie Adams (University of Texas at Austin), “Textual Excerpts in Fifteenth-Century English Miscellanies”

Matthew Cleary (University of Edinburgh), “Select Issues in Inheritance Law in England, c. 1440- c. 1500: Jurisdictional Relations under Civil and Canon Law” (working title)

Aylin Malcolm (University of Pennsylvania), “Literature and ecological science in late medieval England”

Rachel Podd (Fordham University), “Health and Disease in Late Medieval England”

Christopher Queen (University of California, Riverside), “Late Middle English Literature, affect and emotion, queer studies, manuscript studies, medievalism, history of the field, textual and bibliographical criticism”

The Medieval Academy Book Subvention Program provides grants of up to $2,500 to university or other non-profit scholarly presses to support the publication of first books by Medieval Academy members. Click here for more information.

NEW: The Medieval Academy Inclusivity and Diversity Book Subvention Program provides subventions of up to $5,000 to university or other non-profit scholarly presses to support the publication of books concerning the study of inclusivity and diversity in the Middle Ages (broadly conceived) by Medieval Academy members. Click here for more information.

Applications for subventions will be accepted only from the publisher and only for books that have already been approved for publication. Eligible Academy members who wish to have their books considered for a subvention should ask their publishers to apply directly to the Academy, following the guidelines outlined on the relevant webpage. The deadline for proposals is 1 May 2021.