Summer Skills Workshops
This summer, the MAA will offer four online Summer Skills Workshops: Old French (Terry Cullen, Vassar College); Latin Paleography (Sean Gilsdorf, Harvard Univ.), Medieval Latin (Diane Warne Anderson, University of Massachusetts, Boston), and Medieval Liturgy and Liturgical Books (Susan Boynton, Columbia University). Applications must be received by 15 April.
Click here for more information and to apply.
Have you found yourself unsure about which MAA Grant or Fellowship is the right fit for you and your work? Thanks to MAA Special Projects Assistant Jon Dell Isola, you need wonder no more. Jon has recently written Guidelines for Applicants, and these have now been posted to our website: one for students, and one for everyone else. He will be presenting the student guidelines at an upcoming webinar sponsored by the MAA Graduate Student Committee; click here for more information and to register. We hope that this presentation and these documents will help members make decisions about which MAA grantmaking program they should look to for support.
As the MAA enters its second century, we continue to revisit all of our various programs and policies in order to ensure that we are serving our constituents and the field as best we can. The Ad Hoc Committee on Grants & Fellowships was convened in the fall of 2025 to review all of our grantmaking programs and recommend possible changes to eligibility, grant amounts, and adjudication procedures. The Committee members are: Joseph Ackley (Wesleyan Univ.), Richard Barton (Univ. of North Carolina, Greensboro), Cristina Maria Cervone (Univ. of Memphis), Sarah Davis-Secord (Univ. of New Mexico), and Craig Nakashian (Texas A&M Univ. – Texarkana). Their work is nearly complete and any changes approved by Council will be announced and implemented in the fall.
As ever, the Medieval Academy will have a strong presence at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo. We hope you will join us for these sessions and special events:
1) For the first time, the MAA Plenary will take place on Friday evening instead of Friday morning. The lecture will be delivered by Michelle M. Sauer (University of North Dakota), “The Queerness of Solitude”, at 7 PM in Sangren Hall 1910. Two related sessions organized by Prof. Sauer will take place on Saturday at 10:30 AM, “Queerness of Solitude (1): Gender, Queerness, and Enclosure” and Saturday at 1:30 PM, “Queerness of Solitude (2): Sex, Gender, and Space in Mystical Literature,” both in Sangren Hall 1910.
2) The Graduate Student Committee Roundtable will take place on Saturday at 8:30 AM, “Ugly Books: How to Research Damaged or Fragmented Manuscripts,” in Sangren Hall 2710.
3) The MAA Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Committee is co-sponsoring a workshop on Saturday at 1:30 PM, “Digital Pedagogies for a Medieval World: A Workshop on Digital Humanities in the Classroom,” in Waldo Library 3014 (the Multipurpose Room).
4) Finally, we invite you to visit our staffed table in the exhibit hall to introduce yourself, transact any Medieval Academy business you may have, or pick up some chocolate to keep you going during those long afternoon sessions. As in the past, we will be giving away fifty free one-year memberships to new members, so spread the word!
See you at the ‘Zoo!
The Schallek Awards support graduate students whose work, in any relevant discipline, focuses primarily on the late medieval period in England or any of the British Isles, or which involves British connections to the European Continent in the late medieval period. The five Awards of $5,000 each are supported by a generous gift to the Richard III Society from William B. and Maryloo Spooner Schallek.
Madeline Fox (University of Michigan), “The Middle English Devotional Life of Magdalena von Freiburg”;
Olivia Caroline Geraci (University of Notre Dame), “Liturgical practices of medieval English women religious”;
Catherine Rose Introcaso (CUNY Graduate Center), “Annotation as Embodied Devotion in Late Medieval Mystical-Contemplative Manuscripts”;
Kamila Kaminska-Palarczyk (Yale University), “Reading Like a Woman: Medieval Prologues in the Mother Tongue, c. 1300–1420″;
Karen Ward (University of Waterloo), “The Interpellating Mindscape of Medieval York: Objects, Times, and Spaces as Networked Cultural Nodes in the York Corpus Christi Cycle”.
The four Constable Awards of $1,500 support research and travel for unaffiliated scholars, adjuncts, postdoctoral lecturers, and other pre-tenure scholars. The Constable Fund was established in memory of Oliva Remie Constable.
Ella Beaucamp, “Swallow, Bite, Sing: Sound and Image in the Romanesque Ambones of Campania”;
Katherine Churchill, researching late medieval English archives, docupoetry, and authority;
Brittany Nikole Forniotis, “Monumental Fictions: Constructing Urban Landscapes with Pieces of the Past”;
Matthew A. Keil, investigating the Syriac origins and Greek transmission of the hagiographic Life of Abraham of Qidun and Mary.
The Belle da Costa Greene Award of $2,000 supports research and travel by an unaffiliated, adjunct, or otherwise pre-tenure medievalist. 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). The 2026 Greene Award is being granted to Tiago Viula de Faria, “Falconry: Cultural Syncretism in Medieval and Early Modern Portugal.”
Writing Like Monks and Nuns: a Writing Community by the Graduate Student Committee
Tuesday, April 7th, 3pm EDT
“He who does not know how to write does not think that it is a labor. Three fingers write, the whole body labors. Whoever has read this book, pray for me”. (Bibliothèque nationale de France, lat. 9561, fol. 81v.)
Does this scribal plea—found by Thijs Porck (Universiteit Leiden)—resonate with your writing practice? Crying out in pain from an eighth century copy of Gregory’s Pastoral Care this scribe asks for an intercession familiar to dissertation writers, “pray for me”. Clacking away, hunched over a computer screen we toil physically as well.
Toil alone no longer! The Graduate Student Committee of the MAA invites you to our writing community pilot, Writing Like Monks and Nuns.
Informed by research on the benefits of writing groups for early career researchers and inspired by medieval writing practices, we aim to create a space of accountability, community, and fun.
Each 75-minute writing session begins with a medieval writing warm-up, followed by dedicated writing time and a short debrief. Attendees will be entered in a drawing to win a free year of MAA membership.
Questions can be directed to organizers Camila Roxana Marcone (camila.marcone@yale.edu) and Summer Block Lizer (summer.lizer@cgu.edu)
Dates and times
April 7 – 3pm EST
April 21 – 3pm EST
May 5 – 3pm EST
May 19 – 3pm EST
June 9 – 3pm EST
June 23 – 3pm EST
Register here to receive the zoom link.
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MAA Funding for Graduate Students
Moderated by Rebekkah Hart
Wednesday, May 6th, 3pm EDT
We welcome all graduate student medievalists to a webinar on May 6th at 3pm EDT about grant opportunities through the Medieval Academy. MAA Special Projects Assistant Jon Dell Isola will provide an overview of the various grant opportunities and tips for applying to grants.
Presenter:
Jon Dell Isola, Medieval Academy of America
Click here to register!
Call for Proposals
Spaces and Stories of Resistance: The 2027 International Association for Robin Hood Studies Conference
June 4-5, 2027
Irvine Valley College (Irvine, Southern California, United States)
In-person and virtual
The stories of Robin Hood and other outlaw figures offer complex, shifting, persistent narratives of resistance and power, inhabiting diverse storyworlds that respond to and reflect the needs of the society in which the outlaw emerges. The Robin Hood tradition is a rich and varied one; tales of outlaw heroes, resistance fighters, tricksters, and merry bands can be found across time and space, spanning the globe.
At present, spaces and stories of resistance and power are particularly timely and vital concepts, and the International Association for Robin Hood Studies invites proposals for conference presentations which examine the complexity of these themes. What might it mean to create a community or space of resistance? (For that matter, what is being resisted, and by whom?) How can tales of these outlaw heroes impact the present and invite the construction of the future, and equally, how might these stories shape our understanding of the past and ourselves? How are these spaces of resistance imagined, and re-imagined, in response to and in tension with structures of power? How do these stories contribute to narratives of cultural and/or national identity?
Particular attention will be given to proposals which incorporate these concepts, though – in keeping with the greenwood community spirit – all Robin Hood and similar outlaw-related proposals are invited for consideration! The IARHS welcomes international scholars working in diverse fields, such as literature and drama, history, folklore and mythology, film and television studies (including Disney), music and performing arts, fashion and costume design, comics and graphic arts, adaptation studies, and fan studies.
The IARHS understands that travel may be complicated for any number of reasons, and while we encourage in-person attendance and community, a virtual presentation and attendance option will be available via Zoom.
Please submit proposals, consisting of a 200-500 word abstract and a short bio, to iarhsconference2027@gmail.com by February 1, 2027.
Please also indicate whether you will have any A/V needs, and whether you are considering in-person or virtual attendance, if accepted.
Undergraduate scholars are welcome to submit proposals for consideration for undergraduate sessions; please include the name of a supervising faculty member or scholar, and your institutional affiliation, in your proposal.
CALL FOR PAPERS
Website: https://www.um.edu.mt/events/voynich2026/
Email: voynich2026@um.edu.mt
The Voynich Manuscript has been described as one of the most mysterious books in the world. The manuscript is written in an unidentified script from an unknown language and contains illustrations of plants, bathing women, mysterious creatures, and what appear to be Zodiac signs and astrological symbols. The manuscript was radio-carbon dated to the 15th century and is held at the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale University. The manuscript has, so far, resisted all attempts at decipherment and interpretation. Research on the manuscript is a truly multidisciplinary effort.
We invite papers reporting on research on the Voynich manuscript from numerous areas such as (but not limited to):
Note: Proposed “solutions” will not be accepted.
The initial submission should be a (maximum) 750 word abstract/summary of the paper that is intended to be submitted.
Upon notification of acceptance the authors will have 1 month to submit the full paper [5-9 pages] for additional review.
REVIEW PROCESS
The goal of the conference is to publish exciting new work that has not been published elsewhere. Therefore, by submitting a manuscript for consideration to the conference the authors acknowledge that it is not a previously published work nor has it been accepted for publication in a similar form in a peer-reviewed forum including journals, conferences and workshops.
The review process itself (both abstract and submission of paper) will entail a double blind process with volunteer reviewers. Every effort will be made to match the most appropriate reviewers to the submission received.
The submission process entails two phases.
Abstract/Summary: Provide an abstract/summary for the work that is to be submitted. This should be no longer than 750 words. Please use the abstract submission component of the EasyChair submission link (to be supplied early 2026) to input your abstract/summary directly. If your submission has figures/diagrams or uses a Voynich font you can also upload your submission as a PDF (in addition to the text abstract/summary). Be specific with contribution, findings and methodologies used. Successful submissions will be invited to submit a paper (5-9 pages) for the conference.
Paper Submission: A paper (of length 5-9 pages) will be submitted. It is requested the authors use the CEUR-ART templates as the conference proceedings will be published on the CEUR-WS open access website. They support both LaTeX and LibreOffice (Word support for templates was dropped).
The authors will also agree that if the paper is accepted at least one of the authors will register for the conference and present the paper and participate in the relevant Q&A session. The conference presentation format will consist of a 20 minute pre-recorded video presentation from the author(s) of the paper followed by a question and answer session with the author(s).
IMPORTANT DATES
Conference Date:
Wednesday December 9, 2026
Format:
Online
Abstract/Summary Deadline:
June 30, 2026 (11:59 Central European Summer Time)
Acceptance of Abstract/Summary submission notification:
July 24, 2026
Full Paper Submission [4-9 pages]:
Aug 31, 2026 (11:59 Central European Summer Time)
Acceptance Notification:
October 1, 2026
Provision of Paper Presentation video deadline:
November 9, 2026
Submissions will be carried out on the EasyChair platform
https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=voy2026
AI POLICY
Software that assists with grammar, spelling, or translation of your own words is not considered generative AI and doesn’t require disclosure
The Kislak Center for Special Collections, Rare Books and Manuscripts at the University of Pennsylvania Libraries is happy to announce the Elizabeth A. R. Brown Medieval Historians Archive.
Historian Elizabeth A.R. Brown (“Peggy”), who died in August 2024 at age 92, honored the Penn Libraries with a bequest to establish an archive for the professional papers of medieval historians and endowed an archivist position to develop and manage it.
Launched in 2025, the Elizabeth A. R. Brown Medieval Historians Archive is now collecting the papers of prominent medievalists and making these collections available for in-person research through the Penn Libraries’ Kislak Center in Philadelphia, PA.
The archive’s website provides links to the finding aids for all processed collections along with information about the types of material collected.
Elizabeth A. R. Brown Medieval Historians Archive
Available for research (March 2026)
Recently acquired
To discuss possible donations to the Medieval Historians Archive, please contact the Elizabeth A. R. Brown Archivist, Meg Phillips, at phillip7@upenn.edu.
The Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto offers a Summer Latin Program consisting of three levels of study that may be of interest to your community or network.
Beginning Latin, Level I Latin, and Level II Latin are open for registration, and students outside of Toronto will be pleased to know that all three levels of Latin instruction are now taught exclusively online, virtually via Zoom.
All courses are taught from 10:30 am-12:30 pm (EDT).
REGISTRATION DEADLINE: May 1
Those who regularly attend courses and complete assignments will be provided with an official letter detailing the course content and their participation. Following successful completion of Level I and Level II programming, students may elect to register for a CMS Latin Exam to receive a Statement of Proficiency, which is a requirement for many post-secondary programs both in North America and internationally.
Some may also be interested to seek financial support to offset the cost of tuition through the Medieval Academy of America / CARA Summer Scholarship Programme. Details can be found at medievalacademy.org/page/CARA_Scholarships, and the deadline to apply for this funding is April 1.
Please do not hesitate to direct interested students to the CMS website at medieval.utoronto.ca/latin/summer-latin-program, or contact Graduate Administration at gradadm.medieval@utoronto.ca.
The conference “Meditative Retreat by Streams and Mountains: New Reflections on Chinese Painting and Visual Culture” brings together the most recent research on Chinese painting, focusing on its intersections with image-making practices, ritual traditions, sensory experience, social dynamics, and cross-cultural exchange. Please join us on April 3-5, 2026 at 501 Schermerhorn Hall, Columbia University. For further details and to register, please visit: https://burkecenter.columbia.edu/lectures-symposia/meditative-retreat-streams-and-mountains-new-reflections-chinese-painting-and?fbclid=IwY2xjawQXN8ZleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFXdUVTMmdldnhNTXI1NUNZc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHuEC3r4AFtiqzVITfFCisvr1O1HMgvWnRx6OQCENBOY7zX0ioEGEMrmVrC6h_aem_vGZ8dwqaTi43vTQDK1p9jQ
