The Medieval Academy Blog

To the Members of the Medieval Academy of America:

As a service to our members, we will occasionally share with you calls to action from organizations with whom we are affiliated. The message below comes from the National Humanities Alliance, regarding threats to the National Endowment for the Humanities.

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An Urgent Message from the NHA:

On Monday, March 31, 2025 we learned that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) is targeting the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) with the aim of substantially reducing its staff, cutting the agency’s grant programs, and rescinding grants that have already been awarded.

As we have seen with similar recent actions, including the recent attack on IMLS, these actions have the potential to devastate the agency. We have been in contact with our partners on the Hill, and we are taking other actions to raise awareness about this attack. We encourage our Members to join us in taking these actions:

– Share our statement condemning DOGE actions against NEH

– Contact your representatives using our advocacy alert

– Share our advocacy alert with your members and colleagues

– Alert members of the press about the impact of NEH funding in your state and district

If you have open grants, we encourage you to draw down as much as possible from them as soon as possible. Additionally, if your grant is in any way impacted, it is imperative you let your Members of Congress know. Need help with staffer contact info? Email Alex Klein at aklein@nhalliance.org.

We will be offering office hours for the next two weeks to encourage press outreach, during which we can help you think through messaging, pitch strategies, etc. Sign up for office hours at the following links:

– Wednesday, April 2 & 9 – 10:00 a.m. ET

– Thursday, April 3 & 10 – 2:00 p.m. ET

– Friday, April 4 & 11 – 11:00 a.m. ET

– Monday, April 7 – 12:00 p.m. ET

– Tuesday, April 8 – 12:00 p.m. ET

We are exploring further actions and will continue to keep you informed as additional action is needed.

The Medieval Academy of America has sent a Letter of Concern to the Interim President and the Provost of Columbia University, signed by the current and immediate-past Presidents of the MAA. Copies were sent by email to several different departments and offices on campus. You may access the letter here.

As part of its ongoing commitment to Byzantine studies, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for Mary Jaharis Center sponsored sessions at the 51st Annual Byzantine Studies Conference to be held in Detroit, Michigan, October 30–November 2, 2025. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is April 14, 2025.

If the proposed session is accepted, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 5 session participants (presenters and chair) up to $800 maximum for scholars traveling from inside North America and up to $1400 maximum for those coming from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided. Eligible expenses include conference registration, transportation, and food and lodging. Receipts are required for reimbursement.

For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/51st-bsc

Contact Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the next lecture in our 2024–2025 lecture series.

The Blood of His Flesh? Controversial Relics from Byzantium in Venice
Karin Krause, University of Chicago
April 10, 2025 | 12:00 PM (EDT, UTC -4) | Zoom

This lecture examines the history and shifting interpretations of two relics of the Holy Blood of Christ in the Church of St. Mark’s in Venice between the late Middle Ages and the Baroque era.

One is kept in a Byzantine rock crystal pyx bearing a Greek inscription that identifies its contents as Christ’s carnal blood. Although the artifact is listed in an inventory drawn up in 1325, Venetian sources before the seventeenth century are suspiciously silent about the veneration and whereabouts of this relic. Evidently, the reliquary remained concealed in the Santuario, the relic chamber of St. Mark’s, until its miraculous rediscovery in 1617.

Drawing on sources from Venice and elsewhere, I argue that soon after the arrival of the pyx, its contents must have become part of the theological controversy over the bodily blood of Christ, a Catholic debate questioning the authenticity of such relics. Because of its problematic contents, I conclude, the doges decided not to make the pyx available for public veneration for several centuries. The theological disputes surrounding the relic inside the pyx can be better understood in light of the fate of a second reliquary of the Holy Blood of Christ from Constantinople, which has been in the same church since the thirteenth century.

It was only during the Baroque era that the relic inside the Byzantine pyx was rehabilitated as authentic resulting from the efforts of Giovanni Tiepolo, an accomplished theologian and ecclesiastical leader. I examine the strategies Tiepolo employed to establish the relic’s cult, strategies that illuminate the scholar’s familiarity with Byzantine history and religious culture.

Karin Krause is an Associate Professor in the University of Chicago Divinity School. Trained as an art historian, she specializes in the Christian visual cultures of Byzantium and the premodern Mediterranean region.

Advance registration required. Register: https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/the-blood-of-his-flesh

Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.

We are very pleased to announce that the Medieval Academy of America has received an Intention Foundry Learned Society Extended Engagement Microgrant from the American Council of Learned Societies. The grant will fund a series of summer webinars to promote the work of scholars and scholarship honored by our five Inclusivity & Diversity (I&D) Awards in 2025: the I&D Publication Subvention, the I&D Research Grant, the I&D Travel Grant, the Article Prize in CRT, and the Belle da Costa Greene Award. These five prizes support work that expands the traditional boundaries of Medieval Studies through engagement with Critical Race Studies, Disability Studies, Queer Studies, and the Global Medieval, among other methodologies. In addition, the Belle da Costa Greene Award explicitly supports scholars of Color. We will publish the schedule for these webinars in the coming weeks. Click here for more information about the Intention Foundry program.