The Medieval Academy Blog

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. The deadline for proposals is 1 May 2019.

Click here for more information.

The Medieval Academy of America invites proposals for panels at the 2020 meeting of the American Historical Association in New York City, January 3-6.

Each year the Medieval Academy co-sponsors with the AHA several sessions at this meeting that are likely to be of particular interest to MAA members and general interest to a broader audience.

There is a two-stage process:

1) Members of the Medieval Academy submit draft session descriptions to the MAA’s AHA Program Committee by emailing them to the committee co-chairs, Professor Celia Chazelle (chazelle@tcnj.edu) and Laura Smoller (laura.smoller@rochester.edu) by January 20, 2019. Descriptions should include the session title, session abstract, paper titles, names and affiliations of the organizer, presenters, and (if relevant) respondent. Individual paper abstracts are requested but not required. Guidelines for sessions and submitting proposals can be found on the AHA website here.

2) If the session proposal is approved by the MAA AHA Committee, the organizer submits the proposal directly to the AHA (using their on-line system) before the deadline of February 15, 2019, indicating that the session has the sponsorship of the Medieval Academy of America.

Please note that only sessions approved by the AHA Program Committee will appear as sponsored by the MAA and AHA on the program and that the MAA does not independently sponsor sessions.

The 2019 MAA/CARA Conference Grant has been awarded to the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities for the 17-19 October 2019 conference “Premodern Food Cultures” under the direction of Michelle M. Hamilton. The MAA/CARA Conference Grant supports regional or consortial medieval studies symposia. Click here for more information.

The year 2019 has begun, and it is time to renew your membership in the Medieval Academy of America for the current year if you have not already done so. You must be a member in good standing to apply for grants and fellowships given out by the Academy, to speak at the Medieval Academy Annual Meeting, or to participate in its governance.

Membership brings other benefits, such as:

– a subscription to Speculum, our quarterly journal
– online access to the entire Speculum archive
– access to our online member directory
– publication and database discounts through our website

Other memberships perquisites are listed here.

You can easily pay your dues and/or make a donation through the MAA website where, after you sign into your account, you can also adjust your membership category if necessary. Please consider supplementing your membership by becoming a Contributing or Sustaining member or by making a tax-deductible donation as part of your end-of-year giving. Your gift helps subsidize lower membership rates for student, contingent, and unaffiliated medievalists and also supports our grant-making programs.

You may also wish to remember the Academy with a bequest as a member of our Legacy Society (for more information, please contact the Executive Director).

With your help, the Academy increased its support of members in 2018, especially student, independent, and contingent scholars, through the numerous awards and fellowships offered annually. We sincerely hope that you will renew your valued membership in the Academy as we continue this work in 2019.

Thank you for your support. We look forward to working with you in 2019 and hope to see you at the 2019 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy in beautiful Philadelphia (March 7-9).

Click here to renew.

David Wallace, President
Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director

Congratulations to these Medieval Academy members, recent recipients of funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities:

Abigail Balbale (Bard Graduate Center): NEH Fellowship for “Memory, Genealogy and Power in al-Andalus: A Study of Rex Lupus, Medieval Islamic Ruler in Southern Spain,” a book-length study about Rex Lupus, a twelfth-century Islamic ruler in southern Spain, and the ways in which his memory was used by future Christian and Muslim historians.

Thomas Barton (University of San Diego): NEH Fellowship for “The Christianization of Islamic Landscapes in Premodern Europe,” a book on the reestablishment of two bishoprics in southern Catalonia after the end of Muslim rule in twelfth-century Spain and the complex Christianization efforts in these contested multi-ethnic territories.

Angela Bennett (University of Nevada, Reno): NEH Fellowship for “Manuscript Orientations: Mediation, Meditation, and the Movements of Piers Plowman,” a digital publication that compares and analyses the over fifty manuscript versions of the Middle English poem Piers Plowman (ca. 1370-90).

Karen Desmond (Brandeis University): NEH Digital Humanities Advancement Grant for “Measuring Polyphony: An Online Music Editor for Late Medieval Polyphony,” the development of a prototype of an online music editor to help scholars and students analyze medieval music manuscripts.

Erik Inglis (Oberlin College): NEH Fellowship for “Objects of Memory: The Medieval Art Historical Imagination,” research and writing leading to publication of a book about medieval art and attitudes of medieval people toward art, from 600 to 1500.

Susan McDonough (University of Maryland, Baltimore County): NEH Fellowship for “Migration and Prostitution in the Medieval Mediterranean World,” archival research and writing of a book-length study on the legal and economic history of prostitutes and their migration patterns in major port cities of the medieval Mediterranean basin, Barcelona, Marseille, and Genoa.

Anne-Helene Miller (University of Tennessee, Knoxville): NEH Fellowship for “The Formation of a Francophone Identity in 14th Century Literature, ” research and writing leading to publication of a book on the development of fourteenth-century French literary culture.

Sara Ritchey (University of Tennessee, Knoxville): NEH Fellowship for “‘Salvation is Medicine’: Gender and the Caregiving Communities of Late Medieval Europe,” preparation of a book on medieval women’s medical knowledge and religion-based caregiving practices.

If you have good news to share, send it to Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis for inclusion in the next Newsletter.