The Medieval Academy Blog

The 96th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America took place online from March 15-18. The meeting was hosted by  Indiana University at Bloomington, with 250 speakers in fifty-three sessions attended by 734 registrants from eighteen countries. This was, by far, the largest meeting in the history of the MAA. Plenary lectures were delivered by D. Fairchild Ruggles (The Illinois School of Architecture), Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski, President of the Medieval Academy of America (Emerita, University of Pittsburgh), and Teodolinda Barolini (Columbia University). Thirteen Fellows and Corresponding Fellows were inducted during the Fellows plenary, two of whom (Richard Sharpe and Michael Clanchy) were inducted posthumously. The CARA Plenary session on Sunday morning was devoted to the topic of Digital Epistemologies. The seventy attendees at the CARA Annual Meeting on Sunday afternoon addressed an important and engaging topic in moderated breakout sessions, “Surviving and Thriving through a Time of Crisis: Conversations on Envisioning Medieval Studies in the US at the Close of the Centenary.” The panel discussion during the CARA Annual Meeting was recorded and is online here. The discussants were Moira Fitzgibbons (Marist College), Gina Brandolino (University of Michigan), Nicole Lopez Jantzen (Borough of Manhattan Community College-CUNY), and Valerie Michelle Wilhite (International Medieval Society-Paris, Americas Director).

Fellows’ Induction Ceremony.

The 97th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will be hosted by 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.

Hybrid and online participation. The Program Committee intends to run a fully hybrid conference in light of the pandemic and related issues of accessibility. Online options and alternatives will be offered at the level of the individual paper, the panel, the plenaries, the business of the Academy, and certain social events to the extent possible. The committee encourages the widest possible participation and will design the program, select spaces, and manage technology accordingly.

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.

Proposals must be submitted by June 1. Click here for the full Call for Papers

The Medieval Academy of America is proud to serve as co-host for Part 1 of a three-part worldwide Digital Medievalist symposium, “The Past, Present, and Future of Digital Medieval Studies.” Part 1 will focus on Digital Medieval Studies in the Americas, centering the importance of images and imaging for medievalists working on the western side of the Atlantic. (Monday, May 24, 11 AM – 3:30 PM EDT). This symposium will be followed by “Asia & Oceania: Digital Transformations” (Friday, June 11) and “Africa & Europe: Diving Into Sources” (Monday, June 21). Click here for more information about the entire series and to register.

We are very pleased to announce that CARA Summer Scholarships have been awarded to:

Katherine Briant (University of Rochester), Rare Book School, “Scientific Analysis of the Book”

Wei-Ting Chen (University of Kentucky), Princeton University, French and Latin

Anastasia Marie Heiser (University of Tennessee – Knoxville), Rare Book School, “Introduction to Archives for Special Collections Librarians, Booksellers & Collectors”

Alex Korte (University of Minnesota Twin Cities), University of Colorado, “The Mediterranean Seminar: An Introduction to the Archive of the Crown of Aragon (Documents in Latin to ca. 1350)”

Kimberly Jaye Lifton (Cambridge University), University of Groningen, “Old Frisian and its Neighbours”

Marisa Ellen Mills (University of Southern Mississippi), University of Tennessee, Knoxville, Latin

Kelsey Shearman (University of St Andrews and University of Birmingham), University of Tennessee, Latin

Nick Thompson (Queen’s University at Kingston), Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto, Latin

Melanie Vigil (California State University-Fullerton), University of Toronto, Latin;

Emma-Catherine Wilson (University of Ottawa), University of Toronto Centre for Medieval Studies, Latin

We are very pleased to announce the establishment the Monica H. Green Prize for Distinguished Medieval Research. This annual Prize honors Dr. Monica H. Green, whose body of scholarship and public advocacy makes a large and innovative contribution to our awareness and understanding of pandemics, their vectors and their historiography, topics of increasing urgency in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic of 2020. Her work towards a global history of health reframes the public discussion of epidemics and pandemics: it is relevant to biomedical researchers, molecular biologists, population geneticists, and policymakers as well as to historians and medievalists from all fields. Green’s collaborative approach to scholarship serves as a model for others to follow, engaging with geneticists, archaeologists, paleobiologists, and others forging connections between modernity and the Middle Ages both in the public and scholarly spheres. The Monica H. Green Prize will honor scholarship and public engagement that demonstrates the importance of studying the past to understand the present. The inaugural Green Prize of $1,000 will be awarded in 2022 and annually thereafter to honor a distinguished project that shows the value of medieval studies in our present day. We are very grateful to the anonymous donors who have endowed the Green Fund and established the Prize in Dr. Green’s honor.

Click here to make a donation to the Monica H. Green Fund.

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).

All times are EDT. Click here for more information.

The 2021 Paul Mellon/Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Rome Prize has been awarded to Randall Todd Pippenger (Princeton University), “Left Behind: Veterans, Widows, and Orphans in the Era of the Crusades.”

Terrence Cullen (New York University) has been awarded a 2021 Mellon/ACLS Dissertation Completion Fellowships for his dissertation project, “Take Note: Listening to French Literature in the Long Thirteenth Century.”

Georgia Henley (Saint Anselm College) has been awarded an ACLS Fellowship for her project, “Memory on the Margins: Reimagining the Past in the Medieval Anglo-Welsh Borderlands.”

NEH Summer Stipends have been awarded to Jennifer Bryan (Oberlin College), “Chaucer’s Ovidian Arts: Poetic Influence and Innovation at the Beginning of English Literature” and to Mary Caldwell (University of Pennsylvania), “Musical Hagiography and the Medieval Cult of St. Nicholas in Western Europe (ca. 1100–1500).”

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