The Medieval Academy Blog

The end of the year is fast approaching, and it is time to renew your membership in the Medieval Academy of America. 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.

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. You can easily pay your dues through the MAA website or by returning the paper form you will soon be receiving in the mail. We hope you will consider supplementing your membership by becoming a Contributing or Sustaining member or by making a gift. These membership categories, along with your donations, help subsidize lower membership dues for student, contingent, and unaffiliated medievalists. 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).

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

David Wallace, President

Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director

p.s. Please note that we no longer offer Joint Membership for members residing at the same address. If you have been a Joint Member in the past, you will need to select a different membership category for 2019 and beyond. If you share a residence with another member and wish to receive only one paper copy of Speculum, please contact us at info@themedievalacademy.org.

To the Members of the Medieval Academy,

Voting in the Medieval Academy governance election is one of the most important means that members have to impact both the Academy and the future of medieval studies in North America. I am very pleased to announce the names of the Medieval Academy members who have generously agreed to stand for election to office in 2019:

President:
Ruth Mazo Karras (History, Trinity College Dublin)

1st-VP:
Renate Blumenfeld-Kosinski (French, Univ. of Pittsburgh)

2nd-VP:
Thomas E. A. Dale (Art History, Univ. of Wisconsin)

Councillors (four seats available):
Lynda Coon (History, Univ. of Arkansas)
Hussein Fancy (History, Univ. of Michigan)
Fiona Griffiths (History, Stanford Univ.)
Elizabeth Papp Kamali (Law, Harvard Law School)
Adam J. Kosto (History, Columbia Univ.)
Karl Kügle (Musicology, Univ. of Oxford/Utrecht Univ.)
Anne Latowsky (French/Latin, Univ. of South Florida)
Catherine M. Mooney (Theology, Boston College)

Nominating Committee (two seats available):
Stephen Jaeger (German Lit., Emeritus, Univ. of Illinois Champaign-Urbana)
Kathy Lavezzo (English Literature, Univ. of Iowa)
Ann Marie Rasmussen (German and Slavic Studies, Univ. of Waterloo)
Sif Rikhardsdottir (Comparative Literature, Univ. of Iceland)

In addition to biographical information, each candidate has submitted a statement detailing their vision for the Academy and their reasons for wanting to participate in its governance. It is our hope that these statements will assist members in making informed choices about the governance of the Medieval Academy. These statements are online here:

https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/2019Ballot

There are eight candidates for four openings on the Council, the governing body of the Academy. There are four candidates for two openings on the Nominating Committee, tasked with proposing candidates for the annual Council and Officers’ election. As is our practice, the slate of three Presidential Officers is presented unopposed, although nominations by petition may be made as follows, in accordance with article 26 of the By-Laws:

Nominations of other members of the Academy for elected officers, Councillors, or members of the Nominating Committee may be made by written petition signed by at least seven members of the Academy. A nomination by petition may be for a single office, several offices, or an entire slate. Such petitions must be received by the Executive Director within twenty days of the circulation of the report of the Nominating Committee (article 25), unless the Council extends the period for making nominations by petition.

As the slate of candidates is being announced on 25 September, the closing date for nomination by petition has been set at 11:59 PM, 14 October 2018. Additional information about the governance of the Academy can be found on our FAQ page: http://medievalacademy.site-ym.com/page/FAQ

My thanks to the 2019 Nominating Committee for their work in establishing the slate of Council candidates: Ken Pennington (Chair), Robin Fleming, Bernice Kaczynski, Susan Kramer, and Catherine Saucier. My thanks as well to President David Wallace for proposing the slate of Nominating Committee candidates.

Electronic balloting will open on 16 October. If you would prefer to receive a paper ballot and have not received one in the past, please contact me at LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org.

Please vote and let your voice be heard. I look forward to your participation in the election of the leadership of the Medieval Academy of America.

– Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director

The latest issue of Speculum is now available on the University of Chicago Press Journals website.

To access your members-only journal subscription, log in to the MAA website using your username and password associated with your membership (contact us at  info@themedievalacademy.org if you have forgotten either), and choose “Speculum Online” from the “Speculum” menu.  As a reminder, your MAA membership provides exclusive online access to the full run of Speculum in full text, PDF, and e-Book editions – at no additional charge.

Speculum, Volume 93, Issue 4 (October 2018)

Articles

Vt hkskdkxt: Early Medieval Cryptography, Textual Errors, and Scribal Agency
Benjamin A. Saltzman

Dominicans and Demons: Possession, Temptation, and Reform in the Cult of Vincent Ferrer
Laura Ackerman Smoller

Doing Things beside Domesday Book
Carol Symes

Inspiration and Imagination: Visionary Authorship in the Early Manuscripts of the Revelations of Birgitta of Sweden
Thomas Luongo

Book Reviews

This issue of Speculum features more than 70 book reviews, including:

Joachim Yeshaya and Elisabeth Hollender, eds., Exegesis and Poetry in Medieval Karaite and Rabbanite Texts 
Reviewed by Esperanza Alfonso

Helen J. Swift, Representing the Dead: Epitaph Fictions in Late-Medieval France 
Reviewed by Ashby Kinch

Elizabeth M. Tyler, England in Europe: English Royal Women and Literary Patronage, c. 1000-c. 1150
Reviewed by Stacy S. Klein

Craig Williamson, trans., The Complete Old English Poems
Reviewed by R. M. Liuzza

Jana Madlen Schütte, Medizin im Konflikt: Fakultäten, Märkte und Experten in deutschen Universitätsstädten des 14. bis 16. Jahrhunderts 
Reviewed by Debra L. Stoudt

Patrick J. Murphy, Medieval Studies and the Ghost Stories of M. R. James 
Reviewed by Robert S. Sturges

Steven A. Schoenig, SJ, Bonds of Wool: The Pallium and Papal Power in the Middle Ages
Reviewed by Warren T. Woodfin

MAA members also receive a 30% discount on all books and e-Books published by the University of Chicago Press, and a 20% discount on individual Chicago Manual of Style Online subscriptions. To access your discount code, log in to your MAA account, and click here.  Please include this code while checking out from the University of Chicago Press website.

Sincerely,
The Medieval Academy of America

Applications are now being accepted for the inaugural Belle Da Costa Greene Award supporting research by medievalists of color.

The Belle Da Costa Greene Award of $2,000 will be granted annually to a medievalist of color for research and travel. The award may be used to visit archives, attend conferences, or to facilitate writing and research. The award will be granted on the basis of the quality of the proposed project, the applicant’s budgetary needs (as expressed by a submitted budget and in the project narrative), and the estimation of the ways in which the award will facilitate the applicant’s research and contribute to the field. Special consideration will be given to graduate students, emerging junior scholars, adjunct, and unaffiliated scholars.

Belle Da Costa Greene (1883-1950) was a prominent art historian and the first manuscript librarian of the Pierpont Morgan collection. She was also the first known person of color and second woman to be elected a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America (1939). According to the Morgan Library & Museum website, “Greene was barely twenty when Morgan hired her, yet her intelligence, passion, and self-confidence eclipsed her relative inexperience, [and] she managed to help build one of America’s greatest private libraries.” She was, just as importantly, a black woman who passed as white in order to gain entrance and acceptance into the racially fraught professional landscape of early twentieth-century New York. Her legacy highlights the professional difficulties faced by medievalists of color, the personal sacrifices they make in order to belong to the field, and their extraordinary contributions to Medieval Studies.

Applications must be submitted by 15 February and will be adjudicated by the Academy’s Inclusivity and Diversity Prize Committee. The application will consist of a biographical form, CV, a one-page proposal, and a simple budget. Letters of recommendation (no more than two) are optional. So as not to burden the applicant, it is perfectly appropriate to include material and letters prepared for other grant applications. Applicants must be members in good standing of the Medieval Academy as of 15 January of the year in which they apply. Click here to apply.

To make a donation in support of the Greene Award, please visit the MAA website.

The Medieval Academy of America invites submissions for the following prizes to be awarded at the 2019 MAA Annual Meeting (University of Pennsylvania, 7-9 March). Submission instructions vary, but all dossiers must complete by 15 October 2018.

Haskins Medal 
Awarded to a distinguished monograph in the field of medieval studies.

Digital Humanities Prize 
Awarded to an outstanding digital research project or resource in the field of medieval studies.

Karen Gould Prize 
Awarded to a monograph of outstanding quality in medieval art history.

John Nicholas Brown Prize
Awarded to a first monograph of outstanding quality in the field of medieval studies.

Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize
Awarded to a first article of outstanding quality in the field of medieval studies.

The Medieval Academy of America invites applications for the following grants. Please note that applicants must be members in good standing in order to be eligible for Medieval Academy awards.

Schallek Fellowship 
The Schallek Fellowship provides a one-year grant of $30,000 to support Ph.D. dissertation research in any relevant discipline dealing with late-medieval Britain (ca. 1350-1500). (Deadline 15 October 2018)

Travel Grants
The Medieval Academy provides travel grants to help Academy members who hold doctorates but are not in full-time faculty positions, or are contingent faculty without access to institutional funding, attend conferences to present their work. (Deadline 1 November 2018 for meetings to be held between 16 February and 31 August 2019)

MAA/CARA Conference Grant 
The MAA/CARA Conference Grant for Regional Associations and Programs awards $1,000 to help support a regional or consortial conference taking place in 2019. (Deadline 15 October 2018)

Kindrick-CARA Award for Outstanding Service to Medieval Studies 
The Robert L. Kindrick-CARA Award for Outstanding Service to Medieval Studies recognizes Medieval Academy members who have provided leadership in developing, organizing, promoting, and sponsoring medieval studies through the extensive administrative work that is so crucial to the health of medieval studies but that often goes unrecognized by the profession at large.

CARA Award for Excellence in Teaching 
The CARA Award for Excellence in Teaching Medieval Studies recognizes Medieval Academy members who are outstanding teachers and who have contributed to the profession by inspiring students at the undergraduate or graduate levels or by creating innovative and influential textbooks or other materials for teaching medieval subjects.

Nominations and supporting materials must be received by Nov. 15.

“Dante and Virgil in Conversation,” from Oxford: Bodleian Library, MS. Holkham Misc. 48, p. 67. © Bodleian Library, University of Oxford.

To all Members of the Medieval Academy of America:

Members are hereby invited to submit nominations for the election of Fellows and Corresponding Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America for 2019.

The title of Fellow was created in 1926 to recognize and honor those scholars among us who over the years have made outstanding contributions to Medieval Studies through their teaching, scholarship, and service. Nominations are encouraged in all the varied fields encompassed by Medieval Studies, and all members of the Medieval Academy are free to submit nominations. Those nominations are overseen by the Fellows Nominating Committee, which is empowered to intervene only if there is some notable inequity in the list of proposed nominees. Existing Fellows will cast their ballots in December and January. The election of 2019 will operate under the by-laws and procedures adopted in 2013 and revised in 2015.

Existing Fellows may also have chosen to become Emeriti or Emeritae Fellows, which has the effect of opening up additional slots the following year for the election of new Fellows. Such Emeriti/Emeritae Fellows retain the position of Fellow in every respect but relinquish their right to vote in the election of new Fellows.

Current bylaws prescribe that there may be a total of up to 125 Fellows who at the time of election are members of the Academy and residents of North America, and in addition up to 75 Corresponding Fellows who at the time of election are residents of countries outside of North America. Following the rules established by the current bylaws, four (4) slots are available for the year 2019, for which there must be at least eight (8) nominations. For the nomination of Corresponding Fellows no established minimum number of nominations is required.

Instructions for submitting nominations are available here:
https://medievalacademy.site-ym.com/?page=Election_Procedure

Please refer to the lists of current Fellows before proposing a nomination:

Current Fellows:
https://medievalacademy.site-ym.com/?page=Fellows_List

Current Corresponding Fellows:
https://medievalacademy.site-ym.com/page/CorrFellows

Nominations may be submitted by email (as a PDF attachment) to the Executive Director at <LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org> or by mail to:

Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director
Medieval Academy of America
17 Dunster St., Suite 202
Cambridge, Mass. 02138

Nominations for the 2019 elections must be received by 31 October 2018.  Unsuccessful nominations from previous years may be resubmitted. Please contact the Executive Director for further information.

Finally, please note that nominations are to be kept in strictest confidence, from the nominee as well as from others.

– John Van Engen, President of the Fellows

Katie Bugyis has been selected to be a Joy Foundation Fellow at the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University for 2018-19. The Fellowship will support research for her current book project, Liturgy Matters: Benedictine Women’s Communities in Medieval England.

Jennifer Speed (Univ. of Dayton) and two project co-directors have been awarded an NEH Community Connections Planning Grant at the University of Dayton. This one-year curricular project will revise courses in computer science, sociology, history, and music using the life and work of Paul Laurence Dunbar to examine significant themes in American history and culture.

If you have good news to share, please contact Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis.