MAA Graduate Student Committee Mentoring Program

The Graduate Student Committee of the Medieval Academy of America invites those attending the Kalamazoo ICMS or Leeds IMC to participate in the Medieval Academy’s Graduate Student Mentorship Program.

The program facilitates networking between graduate students and established scholars by pairing a student and scholar according to discipline. One need not be a member of the Medieval Academy to participate. The mentorship exchanges are meant to help students establish professional contacts with scholars who can offer them career advice. The primary objective of this mentoring 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 and independent scholars only) or to sign up as a mentee (graduate students) please submit this online form.
At this year’s Kalamazoo ICMS, an Undergraduate Mentorship Program is also being piloted.  This program will connect graduate students with undergraduates considering further study.  To sign up for this pilot program as a mentor (graduate students) or as a mentee (undergraduate students), please submit this online form.

For the 2016 Kalamazoo ICMS, the deadline to sign up is Friday, April 29.
Please contact the Mentorship Program co-ordinators, Justin Barker and Timothy Nelson, for additional information.

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Call for Papers – Lives and Afterlives in the Middle Ages

The organizers of the annual New England Medieval Conference, to be hosted by Dart­ mouth College on November  19, 2016, invite papers that address the 2016 theme “Lives and Afterlives in the Middle Ages.” Whether one studies historical figures, relics, art, litera­ ture, theology, music or myriad other topics, the notion of “life and afterlife” serves as an almost universal conceit through which to interpret the Middle Ages. Some of the ques­ tions that might be addressed by speakers at the conference include: how did the aware­ ness of mortality condition medieval beings? How did time change the appearance, recep­ tion and meaning of events or artifacts?   Why and how did medieval works endure and remain relevant in cultural contexts far removed from that in which they first existed? The advantages to framing the Middle Ages in this fashion include the ability to ponder biogra­ phy and hagiography; the value of life and the matter of death; the promise of paradise

and the specter of damnation. Likewise, from the perspective of a cultural historian, this year’s theme encourages synchronic and diachronic approaches that might address the making and reception of cultural artifacts or other key moments in an artifact’s life-history.

This year’s keynote speaker will be Paul Freedman, the Chester D. Tripp Professor of History at Yale University.

Paper proposals of circa 400 words should be sent by June 15th to the attention of Morgan Swan and Nicola Camerlenghi at the following address: NEMC.2016@dartmouth.edu. For more about the New En­ gland Medieval Conference, visit newenglandmedieval.org.

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Call for Papers – LUCAS Graduate Conference ‘Landscape: Interpretations, Relations, and Representations’

On 26 and 27 January 2017, the Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society will be hosting an international graduate conference entitled ‘Landscape: Interpretations, Relations, and Representations’. A selection of researchers and artists will be invited to participate in panels, in which their 20-minute papers and creative work will be discussed. Participants should currently be undertaking a PhD. When submitting a proposal for a paper presentation or a work of art, please make sure to include a short biography.

Participants are invited to critically explore and reflect on cultural artefacts and practices that project, trace, or confront these processes through the concept, genre, or medium of landscape. By seeking to gather an interdisciplinary and intercultural selection of academic papers and works of art, we aim to encourage an open dialogue among a unique mix of artists and researchers. Please find attached a more detailed conference description, or consult the website: http://hum.leiden.edu/lucas/lucasconference2017/

Two internationally renowned scholars, Professor W.J.T. Mitchell and Professor D.E. Nye will give keynote lectures during the conference.

Please send your proposal (max. 300 words) outlining a 20-minute paper along with a brief bio (max. 150 words) before 1 October, 2016 to lucasconf2017@gmail.com.You will be notified whether or not your paper has been selected by 1 November, 2016. Should you have any question regarding the conference and/or the proposal, please do not hesitate to contact the organising committee at the same email address.

The LUCAS Graduate Conference welcomes papers from all disciplines within the humanities. A selection of papers will be published as conference proceedings in the Journal of the LUCAS Graduate Conference: http://www.hum.leiden.edu/lucas/jlgc/. For those who attend the conference, there will be a registration fee of €50 to cover the costs of lunches, coffee breaks, excursions and other conference materials. Unfortunately, we cannot offer financial support for travel or accommodation expenses.

The organising committee:

Praveen Sewgobind,  Lieke Smits, Tecia Vailati and Anna Volkmar

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Apply Now for 2017 Winter Program in Paleography and Codicology

GREEK PALEOGRAPHY AND CODICOLOGY
Deadline for application: May 15, 2016

The AAR will offer its second winter program in Greek Paleography and Codicology in collaboration with the Vatican Library from 9 to 20 January 2017. The two-week course will introduce participants to various aspects of manuscript studies and offer an interactive dialogue between theory and practice. Applications from graduate and postgraduate students of Classics, History, Theology/Religious Studies, and Byzantine Studies are welcome to apply here.

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Call for Papers – Midwest Medieval History Conference

Midwest Medieval History Conference
Call for Papers
October 21 and 22
Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, TN
Keynote speaker: Thomas Burman, PhD.

The Midwest Medieval History Conference is seeking papers for its annual conference. We welcome papers addressing any aspect of the Middle Ages, particularly papers on this year’s topic, the Medieval Mediterranean. Graduate student papers are welcome for the Friday afternoon sessions, which are dedicated to graduate student research. We also invite papers on the scholarship of learning and on practical approaches to teaching.

Submission deadline: June 15.

Submit abstracts for paper proposals to Paula Rieder at paula.rieder@sru.edu

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MAA News – From the Executive Director: Advocating for Medieval Studies in Secondary Education

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Fitchburg State Univ. Medieval Studies Workshop for Secondary Educators

On April 8, I had the great pleasure of participating in a “Medieval Studies Workshop for Secondary Educators” at Fitchburg State University (Fitchburg, Mass.). The program was organized by Fitchburg State medievalists Kisha Tracy and Reid Weber and was attended by forty faculty members, secondary-school educators, graduate students, and undergraduates. The goal of the workshop was to present and discuss creative and engaging ideas for making the most of the Massachusetts state guidelines for including the Middle Ages in middle and high school curricula.

The day began with a plenary by Amy Appleford (Boston Univ.) on situating medieval asceticism and death practices in London in a modern context. This was followed by a panel discussion on medieval studies in secondary school curricula, with Kisha Tracy (Fitchburg State Univ.), Brandon Hawk (Rhode Island College), Katherine Seawright (Fitchburg State Univ.), Reid Weber, Daniel Sarefield (Fitchburg State Univ.), and myself.

The six breakout sessions featured local medievalists presenting creative ways to engage secondary-school students in Medieval Studies: “Manuscripts in a Sea of Data” (Brandon Hawk); “A Knight’s Tale: Arms and Armor” (presented by the Worcester Art Museum, which is home to one of the nation’s finest collections of arms and armor); “Teaching the Middle Ages-Medieval Music” (Kathleen Sewright); “Teaching with Medieval Film” (John Sexton (Bridgewater State Univ.) and Kisha Tracy); “Castles and Siege: Design and Mathematics” (Reid Weber and Jenn Berg (Mathematics, Fitchburg State Univ.) (this session featured a math lesson using trebuchets); and “From Caves to Cathedrals: A History of Russian Icons” (presented by the Museum of Russian Icons). The breakout sessions were lively and engaging, and all of the educators came away inspired.

My participation in the morning’s panel discussion presented an opportunity for me to reflect on the Medieval Academy’s ongoing efforts in this arena, initiated last year by our former President, Barbara Newman. The Academy’s ad hoc Committee on K-12 Engagement will soon become a permanent committee, and our efforts are just getting started. At February’s Annual Meeting, the Committee (chaired by Tom Burman (Univ. of Tennessee, Knoxville)) sponsored a very lively panel attended by a dozen Boston-area secondary-school educators, all of whom attended the conference at no charge. As at the Fitchburg symposium, the panel addressed both the problems and the opportunities presented by the oft-underwhelming state and federal standards for Medieval Studies. As our efforts move forward, we hope to find ways to advocate at the state and federal levels for improved representation of the medieval.

One way to get the ball rolling is through local initiatives such as the Fitchburg symposium. Professional development points are a key component for K-12 educators who attend such programs; standards for PDPs vary from state to state, so be sure to check your local Department of Education website for information about accreditation. At Fitchburg, the University’s Center for Professional Studies played a major role in securing the state accreditation needed for granting professional development credit to the teachers who attended the workshop. If you are interested in organizing a similar event, please feel free to contact Kisha Tracy and/or Reid Weber, the primary organizers of the Fitchburg State symposium.

– Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director

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MAA News – 2016 Medieval Academy/Graduate Student Committee Grants

Helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship-burial 1, England. Photo by Mike Markowski.

Helmet from the Sutton Hoo ship-burial 1, England. Photo by Mike Markowski.

Launched in 2015, the MAA/GSC Grants are awarded annually to an individual or graduate student group from one or more universities. The purpose of this grant is to stimulate new and innovative efforts that support pre-professionalization, encourage communication and collaboration across diverse groups of graduate students, and build communities amongst graduate student medievalists.

The 2016 MAA/GSC Grants are being awarded to the following projects:

The First Annual Medievalist Art Historians’ Meeting of the Inter-University Doctoral Consortium (Katherine King (Princeton Univ.), Justin Willson (Princeton Univ.), and Meseret Oldjira (Princeton Univ.))

Vagantes 2017 (Andrew Klein (Univ. of Notre Dame) and Margie Housley (Univ. of Notre Dame))

We are very pleased to report on the progress of the three projects that were awarded MAA/GSC Grants in 2015:

The graduate student conference “Method and the Middle English Text” took place on April 8-9;

The digital initiative “English Manuscript Rolls 1200-1600”  has hosted one of two workshops on encoding digitized scroll content using XML and TEI (the second planned for November 2016) and will be presenting at Session 450 at Kalamazoo;

The 2016 Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies took place at Rice University on February 18-20, 2016.

The Medieval Academy is proud to support these innovative student-run projects.

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MAA News – MAA@Kalamazoo

kzooAs always, the Medieval Academy of America will have a strong presence at the 2016 International Congress on Medieval Studies  (May 12-15).

1) The Friday morning plenary, sponsored by the Academy, will be delivered by Jane Chance (Rice Univ.). Her topic will be “How We Read J. R. R. Tolkien Reading Grendel’s Mother” (Friday, 8:30 AM, Bernhard, East Ballroom). Two related sessions on the topic of “How We Read” will take place on Friday at 10 AM (Session 215) and 1:30 PM (Session 267). Both sessions will be in Bernhard 158.

2) On Thursday at 3:30 PM, the Graduate Student Committee is sponsoring a roundtable titled “The Modern Grail: Insider Tips from Search Committees to Land That Academic Job” (Session 100, Valley 1, Hadley 101). The GSC reception will take place immediately afterwards, in Fetzer 1055.

3) The Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA) is sponsoring two panels this year. The first, “Addressing Career Diversity for Medievalists,” will take place on Thursday at 10 AM (Session 5, Valley 1, Hadley 102). The second, “Reflections on the Medieval Mediterranean NEH Summer Institutes,” will take place on Thursday at 3:30 (Session 125, Schneider 1280).

4) The annual CARA Luncheon will take place on Friday at noon (Bernhard, President’s Dining Room). If you would like to attend as a representative of your program or institution, please register online. There is no fee to attend, but pre-registration is required. All are welcome!

5) Finally, we invite you to stop by 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.

See you at the ‘Zoo!

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MAA News – Monty Python @ Kalamazoo

mpWe are thrilled to announce that, in celebration of Speculum‘s new publishing partnership, the University of Chicago Press will be sponsoring two public screenings of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” during the Kalamazoo Congress. The screenings will take place at the Alamo Drafthouse Cinema on Friday (May 13) and Saturday (May 14) at 7:00 pm. Tickets will go on sale soon here.

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MAA News – 2017 Call for Papers

univtorontoThe 92nd Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will be held in Toronto, Ontario, on 6-8 April 2017, hosted by the University of Toronto and The Pontifical Institute for Mediaeval Studies.

The Organizing Committee invites proposals for papers on all topics and in all disciplines and periods of medieval studies. Any member of the Medieval Academy may submit a paper proposal, excepting those who presented papers at the annual meetings of the Medieval Academy in 2015 or 2016; others may submit proposals as well but must become members in order to present papers at the meeting. Special consideration will be given to individuals whose field would not normally involve membership in the Medieval Academy. The due date for proposals is 15 June 2016.

Rather than an overarching theme, the 2017 meeting will provide a variety of thematic connections among sessions. The Medieval Academy welcomes innovative sessions that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries or that use various disciplinary approaches to examine an individual topic. To both facilitate and emphasize interdisciplinarity, the Call for Papers is organized in “threads.” Sessions listed under these threads have been proposed to or by the Organizing Committee but the list provided in the Call for Papers is not meant to be exhaustive or exclusive.

The complete Call for Papers, with proposed threads and sessions as well as instructions for submitting proposals, can be found here:
http://medievalacademy.site-ym.com/?page=2017Meeting.

Please contact the organizing committee if you have further questions about the meeting, at MAA2017@TheMedievalAcademy.org.

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