The Medieval Academy Blog

Innovative Teaching Resources for Online Learning

During the COVID-19 Pandemic educators have come together around the world to create and share new online content that radically rethinks best practices.

Middle Ages for Educators has been a pioneer in these transformational online efforts, which aims to democratize access to information, digital learning, and medieval resources. It offers a vast array of materials for teachers, students, and members of the broader public to learn about Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages (c. 300-1500 C.E.).

The newly-revamped version of the website, Middle Ages for Educators, offers improved access and curation of multimedia content created specifically for online teaching, introductions to digital projects that can be used in classrooms, workshops for using digital tools, and curated links to associated websites with medieval content and materials. The website is a one stop shop for teachers at all levels to create new lesson plans, build videos and podcasts into their existing lessons, and provide ways of flipping their current classroom experience, and facilitating student projects and research.

“Middle Ages for Educators is the first of its kind in medieval and late antique studies,” said co-founder Merle Eisenberg, a postdoctoral fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center. “Covid has forced so many of us to rethink how we teach and once we started looking we realized there were so many online resources that could and should be included in lesson plans, so our website provides those online tools for users.”

“March 2020 and sudden turn to online teaching was a real wake up call for late antique and medieval studies, which has already been at the forefront already of digital education, but it was an important step to bring it all together in one open-access place,” added co-founder Sara McDougall, associate professor of history at John Jay College and the CUNY Graduate Center. “With libraries and offices suddenly closed, teachers overnight were confronted with the need for primary sources, discussion questions, and other web resources, so we have created a place for people to have that content as well as ways to connect and collaborate with experts in the field.”

“Having led many digital projects over the course of my career, I knew that the skills and resources were already there, so we reached out to many people who responded enthusiastically by sharing what they had and creating new content,” said co-founder Laura Morreale. “Students had all types of new questions, such as what was it like to live through a plague in the past, and we worked with educators to create content that addressed that question and many others.”

The website was first launched in early April 2020 as an immediate way to provide content to educators and was an immediate success. Over the course of its first 8 months it had over 25,000 visitors, including 19,000 unique users and it was used in courses at schools across the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom including: the U.S. Naval Academy, the University of Rochester, Middlebury, the Johns Hopkins University, the University of Toronto, and Oxford. But the site needed a permanent home and a remodel, which Princeton University’s Program in Medieval Studies provided.

“When Merle, Sara, and Laura first reached out to me, I knew immediately that this was an important project that has already had a tremendous impact, but will become even more important as an educational site in the future for late antique and medieval studies both in the U.S. and around the world,” said Helmut Reimitz, professor of history at Princeton University and director of the Program in Medieval Studies. “This website will help make Princeton the go-to place for online resources for many years to come. I am excited to help continue to build this project, including our upcoming expansion plans to add new resources, tools, and materials over the next six months.”

The revamped website is available for use by educators anywhere. We welcome inquiries for additional material to add.

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Contact: Merle Eisenberg, 917-576-1449, meisenberg@sesync.org

Western Michigan University is pleased to announce the NEH summer institute for higher education faculty “Law and Culture in Medieval England,” hosted virtually from June 21 to July 16, 2021.

Have you ever wondered about how the Common Law or the legal profession came into being? About how law shaped culture or culture shaped law? About the difference between law as written and as practiced? If so, please consider applying (deadline: March 1, 2021). Full information at wmich.edu/medieval-law-culture.

President Suresh Garimella <Suresh.Garimella@uvm.edu> <president@uvm.edu>
Dean William Falls <William.Falls@UVM.EDU>
Provost Patricia Prelock  <Patricia.Prelock@uvm.edu>

Dear President Garimella, Dean Falls, and Dr. Prelock,

We are writing on behalf of the 3500 members of the Medieval Academy of America, the largest organization in the United States promoting excellence in the field of medieval studies, to support the faculty and students of the University of Vermont who are protesting the administration’s plans to cut twenty-three programs in the university’s College of Arts and Sciences.  We deplore the elimination of the departments of religion and classics, and a series of humanities majors including romance languages and cultures, Asian languages, Latin, Greek, German, Russian and Italian.

By focusing on metrics of enrollment demand alone, you are sacrificing the high-impact learning experiences that so often takes place in smaller classes in the humanities.   At a time when our nation is facing an existential crisis with deep divisions over race, politics, and globalization, you are also diminishing disciplines that offer important tools for grappling with these issues.  Humanities courses teach our students how to think through the issues, critically evaluate evidence, and communicate effectively. They also teach our students about the human condition and enhance empathy for those who are different from ourselves.  Classes in languages and literature that are to be eliminated from your curriculum are foundational for all students in promoting and understanding of our own nation’s cultural and religious diversity and cultivating global citizenship.

We also understand that this decision was made without consulting faculty or the very students whose education will be adversely effected.  We strongly urge you to reconsider this decision and collaborate with faculty and students to devise a plan which will meet the budgetary challenges without sacrificing the vital humanities education of your students.

Thank you for your consideration.

The Presidential Officers and Council of the Medieval Academy of America:

OFFICERS
President: Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski (Univ. of Pittsburgh, emerita)
First Vice-President: Thomas Dale (Univ. of Wisconsin)
Second Vice-President: Maureen Miller (Univ. of California, Berkeley)

COUNCILLORS
Lisa Bitel (Univ. of Southern California)
Seeta Chaganti (Univ. of California, Davis)
Raymond Clemens (Yale Univ.)
Lynda Coon (Univ. of Arkansas)
Hussein Fancy (Univ. of Michigan)
Valerie Garver (Northern Illinois Univ.)
Elina Gertsman (Case Western Reserve Univ.)
Fiona Griffiths (Stanford Univ.)
Geraldine Heng (Univ. of Texas at Austin)
Anne Latowsky (Univ. of South Florida)
Laura Morreale (Independent Scholar)
Lucy Pick (Independent Scholar)

The American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) will present “How Do We Get There?: Accelerating Diversity in Slow to Change Humanities Fields,” on Thursday, December 17, 2020, at 4-5:30 PM EST.

This virtual roundtable discussion will exploring the history, underlying biases, and current state of humanities fields that remain largely homogeneous, and thoughtfully consider solutions for addressing these issues. Sharing their experiences and perspectives in this discussion will be:

• Anita L. Allen, Henry R. Silverman Professor of Law and professor of philosophy at the University of Pennsylvania Law School
• Philip Ewell, Associate Professor of music theory, Hunter College of the City University of New York
• Cord Whitaker, Associate Professor of English, Wellesley College

The discussion will be moderated by Pauline Saliga, executive director of the Society of Architectural Historians, which has been actively addressing ways to advance diversity in its field.

Register for this virtual event.

This event marks the second event in its Humanistic Knowledge for the 21^st Century series. Learn more about ACLS and its commitment to Inclusive Excellence.

This live event will be recorded and shared on the ACLS website.

Event Title: Why did Medieval Europe Expel its Jews?

Schedule: Friday, January 8, 10:00-11:30am (Pacific time)

Event Link: https://stanford.zoom.us/j/97684386779?pwd=TFA1MzdMUEdSY3AwYnR5SEptb2x6QT09

Host: Taube Center for Jewish Studies, Stanford University, in conjunction with Virtual AHA

Co-Sponsor: Medieval Academy of America; Central European History Society; Society for French Historical Studies

Social Media: #VirtualAHA;

Brief Description:

From the thirteenth century onward, the Jewish communities of medieval western Europe faced repeated threats of expulsion. In this webinar, three scholars will draw on their recent research to consider the causes and contexts of these expulsions, focusing in particular on developments in England, France, and Germany between 1200-1500. The three short presentations (of roughly 15 minutes each) will be followed by a roundtable discussion and audience Q&A.

Chair:

Robert C. Stacey, Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences & Professor of History, University of Washington

Speakers:

E.M. Rose, Research Associate, History Department, Harvard University
“Edward and the Eleanors: Royal Piety & the Expulsion of the Jews from England (1290)”

Rowan Dorin, Assistant Professor, History Department, Stanford University
“Doing Unto Others: A Comparative Approach to Medieval Expulsions of Jews”

Kerice Doten-Snitker, Junior Research in Sociology, Carlos III-Juan March Institute and Department of Social Sciences, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid
“How Toleration Ended: The Political Processes of Expulsion in Medieval German Jewish Communities, 1000-1520”

Participant Biographies:

Robert Stacey is Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences and Professor of History at the University of Washington in Seattle.  A graduate of Williams College (1975) and Oxford University (1977), he received his PhD from Yale University in 1983, where he taught for five years before moving to UW.  He is the author of four books:  Politics, Policy, and Finance under Henry III (Oxford, 1987); Receipt and Issue Rolls, 26 Henry III (Pipe Roll Society, 1992); and two textbooks.  He has also written several dozen scholarly articles dealing with the history of the Jewish community in medieval England

E.M. Rose is a historian of medieval and early modern England. She received her PhD in History from Princeton University in 2001, and also holds degrees from Columbia, Oxford, and Yale. Her recent monograph, The Murder of William of Norwich: The Origins of the Blood Libel in Medieval Europe (Oxford, 2015), was awarded both the American Society for Church History’s Albert C. Outler Prize, given annually for the best monograph in ecumenical church history, and the Phi Beta Kappa Society’s Ralph Waldo Emerson Prize, for “a scholarly study that contributes significantly to interpretation of the intellectual and cultural condition of humanity.”

Rowan Dorin is a historian of western Europe and the Mediterranean, primarily during the high and late Middle Ages. After earning his PhD from Harvard University in 2015, he spent two years at the Harvard Society of Fellows before joining the Stanford History Department. Aside from his forthcoming book (Conflicts of Interest: Jews, Christian Moneylenders, and the Rise of Mass Expulsion in Medieval Europe), he has also published articles on canon law, Mediterranean trade networks, the production and use of medieval manuscripts, and the history of Christian-Jewish relations.

Kerice Doten-Snitker is a historical sociologist. Her research investigates the structural and processual roots of inequality and group-based exclusion. Presently, she is working on projects about medieval politics and ethnoreligious groups and about access and equity in higher education. She brings a unique historical perspective to sociological debates about ethnic cleavages, political mobilization, and macro-level change in social policy.