“Middle Ages for Educators” Website

Posted on April 6, 2020 by Chris

In an effort to help with distance learning, teaching and research, medievalists Merle Eisenberg, Sara McDougall, and Laura Morreale have created a new website: Middle Ages for Educators.

The website offers a wide range of materials.

  • Primary sources in Translation: found here with descriptions
  • Videos, podcasts, and useful websites for teaching can be found under Linked Resources- Teaching
  • Linked Resources offers links to existing medieval resources, specialist lectures, digitized manuscript collections, open-access publishing, and resources from adjacent fields
  • Try out our resource exchange for help with locating secondary sources now that libraries are closed

Middle Ages for Educators also offers teaching-focused video lectures.

  • In a short video, Dan Smail discusses the intimate effects of the Black Death in Marseille by recounting the story of a young woman Alayseta Paula. Smail takes you on a journey from the invention of paper that fueled the rise of documentary culture in the west to the curious and unresolved note that the word for “plague” was effaced from Alayseta’s court record.
  • Dana Wessell Lightfoot has shared some of her lectures, including her slides, for example this fantastic exploration of race, racism, and medieval history that can be easily incorporated into your virtual courses.

There is a lot more on the website, so please visit and tell us what you think. This is a work in progress and we highly encourage comments, criticisms, and, most importantly, contributions for more content.

Many more colleagues are preparing contributions on the sources they know best, so check back frequently for more content, and watch for our announcements on twitter and elsewhere at #middleagesforeducators.

Thanks so much!

Merle Eisenberg, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) University of Maryland
Sara McDougall, Associate Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York
Laura Morreale, Independent Scholar

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

GSC Mentorship Program: Deadline April 9

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Chris

DEADLINE TO REGISTER AS A MENTOR OR MENTEE:
April 9
 
*Please note that because Kalamazoo has been cancelled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we will be running the mentorship program digitally.

The Graduate Student Committee (GSC) of the Medieval Academy of America invites those attending the 55th International Congress on Medieval Studies, hosted by the Medieval Institute at Western Michigan University (7-10 May 2020) to participate in the GSC Mentoring Program.

The GSC Mentoring Program facilitates networking between graduate students or early career scholars and established scholars by pairing student and scholar according to discipline.

Mentorship exchanges are intended to help students establish professional contacts with scholars who can offer them career advice. The primary objective of this exchange is that the relationship be active during the conference, although mentors and mentees sometimes decide to continue communication after a conference has ended.

To volunteer as a mentor (faculty, librarians, curators, independent scholars) or to sign up as a mentee, please submit the online form, linked here, by 9 April 2020.

On behalf of the committee, thank you and our best,

Austin Powell & Julia King
2020 Mentoring Program Coordinators

Posted in Graduate Students | Leave a comment

Discounted Books for MAA Members from The Scholar’s Choice

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Chris

Click here for the order form and available titles:

MAA members save 20-50% off on new & recent publications from 16 different publishers with this order form. Mail your completed form with payment or call us at 800-782-0077 and mention code 20-022 to receive the publishers’ discounts.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Jobs for Medievalists

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Chris

Click here for more information and to apply:

Doctoral student, Historical future expectations in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period

The Faculty of Arts is seeking to fill a full-time (100%) vacancy in the Department of History for a

Doctoral student in an ERC-funded project on historical future expectations in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period.

The fully-funded PhD-student will be affiliated with the Centre for Urban History. The Centre for Urban History is an international acknowledged research centre focusing on urban societies, structures and processes in historical perspective. The candidate will contribute to the ERC Starting Grant Project “Back to the Future: Future expectations and actions in late medieval and early modern Europe, c.1400-c.1830” funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 851053, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/225075/factsheet/en) and supervised by prof. dr. Jeroen Puttevils.

To gain more insight in how people in the past thought about the future and how this affected their actions, this project draws on a combination of close and distant reading methods of more than 15,000 letters written in (varieties of) Italian, German, French, Dutch and English by and to European merchants in the period 1400-1830.

The doctoral student will carry out the analysis of long-term developments in the linguistic expression and rhetoric of future statements on the basis of German and Dutch merchant letters from the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Central in this PhD-project will be the impact of crises on future-thinking.

 

Job description

  • You prepare a doctoral thesis in the field of  early modern history.
  • You contribute to research in the field of the late medieval and early modern future expectations in general and to the research goals of the project.
  • You publish scientific articles related to the research project of the assignment. These publications can be co-authored with other project members and external researchers.
  • You co-manage the project website and the project’s presence on social media.
  • You have a limited teaching responsibility in the History Department related to your own field of expertise and you contribute to research in the History Department and the Faculty of Arts.

Profile and requirements

  • You hold a master degree  in history and/or German or Dutch (historical) literature or linguistics.
  • Profound knowledge of German and preferably Dutch and their historical variants is absolutely required.
  • You are fluent in academic English (speaking and writing).
  • You have experience in managing large amounts of historical sources and texts.
  • You can submit outstanding academic results.
  • Also students in the final year of their degree can apply.
  • Your academic qualities comply with the requirements stipulated in the university’s policy.
  • The focus in your teaching corresponds to the educational vision of the university.
  • You are quality-oriented, conscientious, creative and cooperative.
  • You have strong communication skills.
Posted in Jobs for Medievalists | Leave a comment

Jobs for Medievalists

Posted on March 31, 2020 by Chris

Click here for the full description and how to apply:

Doctoral student, Historical future expectations in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period

The Faculty of Arts is seeking to fill a full-time (100%) vacancy in the Department of History for a

Doctoral student in an ERC-funded project on historical future expectations in the Late Medieval and Early Modern Period.

The fully-funded PhD-student will be affiliated with the Centre for Urban History. The Centre for Urban History is an international acknowledged research centre focusing on urban societies, structures and processes in historical perspective. The candidate will contribute to the ERC Starting Grant Project “Back to the Future: Future expectations and actions in late medieval and early modern Europe, c.1400-c.1830” funded by the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 851053, https://cordis.europa.eu/project/rcn/225075/factsheet/en) and supervised by prof. dr. Jeroen Puttevils.

To gain more insight in how people in the past thought about the future and how this affected their actions, this project draws on a combination of close and distant reading methods of more than 15,000 letters written in (varieties of) Italian, German, French, Dutch and English by and to European merchants in the period 1400-1830.

The doctoral student will carry out the analysis of long-term developments in the linguistic expression and rhetoric of future statements on the basis of Italian merchant letters from the fourteenth to the sixteenth centuries. Central in this PhD-project will be the role of capitalism and its relation to future-thinking.

Job description

  • You prepare a doctoral thesis in the field of  late medieval history.
  • You contribute to research in the field of the late medieval and early modern future expectations in general and to the research goals of the project.
  • You publish scientific articles related to the research project of the assignment. These publications can be co-authored with other project members and external researchers.
  • You co-manage the project website and the project’s presence on social media.
  • You have a limited teaching responsibility in the History Department related to your own field of expertise and you contribute to research in the History Department and the Faculty of Arts.

Profile and requirements

  • You hold a master degree  in history and/or Italian (historical) literature or linguistics.
  • Profound knowledge of Italian and its historical variants is absolutely required.
  • You are fluent in academic English (speaking and writing).
  • You have experience in managing large amounts of historical sources and texts.
  • You can submit outstanding academic results.
  • Also students in the final year of their degree can apply.
  • Your academic qualities comply with the requirements stipulated in the university’s policy.
  • The focus in your teaching corresponds to the educational vision of the university.
  • You are quality-oriented, conscientious, creative and cooperative.
  • You have strong communication skills.
Posted in Jobs for Medievalists | Leave a comment

95th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America Virtual Version, March 27-29, 2020

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Chris

The virtual Annual Meeting will include the Presidential Plenary
(delivered by Ruth Mazo Karras), eleven sessions,
the annual Business Meeting, and the annual CARA Meeting.

Click here for the program and session URLs.

Please note that the Medieval Academy of America
Professional Behavior Policy applies to this virtual meeting.

We hope you will join us!

#MAA2020

Posted in Annual Meeting | Leave a comment

News, Webinars, and Opportunities for Mutual Aid

Posted on March 26, 2020 by Chris

From The Bibliographical Society of America:

    • BSA will offer five free, forty-minute webinars Monday, March 23 through Wednesday, April 2. Please find a complete list of online learning opportunities below, and spread the word to your friends and colleagues. Registration required, scroll down for details.
    • Webinar recordings will be posted to our YouTube channel. Created to meet a need of our time, we hope that these will be lasting resources for you, your colleagues, and students.
    • We are working with Dr. Megan L. Cook of Colby College to publish a static version of her crowd-sourced list of digital repositories for teaching book history on our website. Check bibsocamer.org on Monday for an update.
    • Calling all BSA-member-librarians and power users of digital repositories! Are you interested in remotely pairing up with an educator who has moved their course online, and needs help finding subject-specific digital collections? Contact me directly at erin.schreiner@bibsocamer.org to volunteer. This should be a relatively small time commitment.
    • In light of the current situation, we must cancel the 2020 Community Grants Program. ​We will redirect those modest funds to anyone who cannot volunteer their time but would like to lead a webinar or other virtual activity. We recognize that many BSA members will face financial difficulties during this uncertain time, and hope that this small gesture demonstrates our goodwill and support for our community.
    • The call for proposals for programs scheduled for October – December 2020 remains open, with the original April 15 submission deadline. The Program Committee is proceeding with cautious optimism, and we remain firm in our commitment to sponsoring all events committed to for 2020.
Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

Text for Teaching and Research Exchange

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Chris

In the hopes of bringing the community of medievalists together as many of us move online, a working group comprised of Sara McDougall, Merle Eisenberg and Laura Morreale, with the help of the Haskins Society, is creating an online Teaching and Research Exchange entitled “Middle Ages for Educators.” Before we put the site together, however, we want to determine what is most needed from our MedievALList colleagues (medievalists in any professional placement). We have compiled the following survey to help with that effort: https:/tinyurl.com/u59mn6v. We are interested in both what is needed, and what you as a medievalist would be willing to contribute; we have already had generous offers to share pdfs, to host 5-10 minute introductions to primary sources, and to serve as remote guest speakers in digital classrooms. Medievalists are a generous group indeed.

We are asking whether you would fill out the questionnaire to let us know your needs and competencies, and if you could also circulate it to interested medievalists. According to your wishes, we may also reach out to you for further participation once you have completed the survey, but our most urgent goal is to determine what we can do to facilitate co-operation and mutual aid within our community.

Our twitter hashtag is #middleagesforeducators

Merle Eisenberg, Postdoctoral Fellow, National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC) University of Maryland
Sara McDougall, Associate Professor of History at John Jay College of Criminal Justice of the City University of New York
Laura Morreale, Independent Scholar

Posted in Announcements | Leave a comment

Virtual Annual Meeting Program

Posted on March 23, 2020 by Chris

95TH ANNUAL MEETING OF THE MEDIEVAL ACADEMY OF AMERICA
VIRTUAL VERSION, MARCH 27-29, 2020

The virtual Annual Meeting will include the Presidential Plenary
(delivered by Ruth Mazo Karras), eleven sessions,
the annual Business Meeting, and the annual CARA Meeting.

Click here for the program.

Pleas note that Zoom links for individual sessions will be added in the coming days.

We hope you will join us!

Posted in Announcements, Annual Meeting | Leave a comment

MAA 2020 Refunds and Update

Posted on March 20, 2020 by Chris

Dear Colleagues,

I hope you are well, safe, and doing what you need to do to protect yourselves and your community. The MAA office is closed until further notice, but we are all working from home and are healthy and safe.

Online Annual Meeting
We are in the process of planning an open online Annual Meeting for those participants who indicated interest in presenting their work in a live, online format. Some presenters have elected to defer their papers for special consideration by the 2021 Program Committee. Others have decided to retract their presentations so that they can present their work elsewhere. Several of our plenarists have opted to post recordings of their lectures. As a result, the online conference will consist of eleven sessions, the Presidential Plenary, and the annual Business Meeting. The online conference will take place one week from today, on 27-28 March. Please stay tuned for more details in the coming days.

Refunds
We appreciate your patience as we work with our colleagues in Medieval Studies at UC Berkeley to untangle the complicated finances of our Annual Meeting. Although we do not yet have the complete financial picture, we have decided to go ahead and offer full refunds immediately to anyone who needs one, in particular to graduate students, contingent and independent scholars, retirees, and anyone who has found themselves in financial precarity due to the restrictions imposed by the COVID-19 outbreak.
If you do not need a refund, please consider donating all or part of your registration fee to help us offset the losses that will be incurred by the Medieval Academy as a result of the cancellation of the Annual Meeting. Your tax-deductible donation will help us to proceed in a responsible fashion that both supports those in need and stewards resources that would normally be earmarked to support the Medieval Academy’s members, including those likely to be hit hardest by the impact of COVID-19 in the coming weeks and months.

If you would like a refund or would like to donate your registration fee, please use this form to indicate your preference: 
 
https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/MAA2020Refunds

If you would like a refund eventually but don’t need it immediately, please wait until you hear from us again before submitting the form. Right now, this form is for those who need their refund as soon as possible or who know they would like to turn their registration fee into a donation.

In the current climate, your membership is more important than ever. If you haven’t renewed for 2020, you may do so on our website:
https://www.medievalacademy.org/members/membership.asp

Finally, if you did not register for the Annual Meeting but would like to make a donation to the Medieval Academy, please click here:
https://www.medievalacademy.org/donations/fund.asp?id=6844
I would like to express my utmost gratitude to Program Committee Chairs Maureen Miller and Katherine O’Brien O’Keeffe, the 2020 Program Committee, event planner Helena Weiss-Duman, and the MAA Staff and Governance for their hard work and support during these last few weeks.

Please stay safe, and I look forward to seeing you at MAA 2021.

– Lisa

Lisa Fagin Davis
Executive Director, Medieval Academy of America
LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org

Posted in Annual Meeting | Leave a comment