The Medieval Academy Blog

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.

As 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!

We 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.

The 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.

Applications are now being accepted for a one year postdoctoral fellow to serve as editorial assistant at Speculum from July 1, 2016 – July 31, 2017. This position offers qualified individuals an opportunity to develop as scholars and editors. The postdoc will receive a $43,000 stipend, health benefits, and limited research and travel funds and will be expected to assume  responsibilities for certain editorial tasks at Speculum 35 hours/week, including, but not limited to: coordinating reviews with book review editors; contacting reviewers; checking citations for accepted articles; proofreading reviews, Brief Notices, Books Received, and Tables of Contents; and proofing full issues of Speculum. In addition, the assistant will be encouraged to continue to develop a research program and participate in the cultural life of medieval studies in the Boston area. The term is subject to the postdoc’s continuing, acceptable performance of the duties required, as determined by the Editor of Speculum.

Eligible candidates must meet the following requirements and demonstrate the following qualifications:

* PhD in some field of medieval studies before July 1, 2016 but no earlier than January 1, 2011;
* Attention to detail and evidence of a high level of scholarly precision, particularly with regards to proofreading and bibliographic detail;
* Strong work ethic.

All interested candidates should write to Sarah Spence, Editor of Speculum (sspence@themedievalacademy.org), and should include the following:

* One-page cover letter;
* Curriculum vitae;
* Unofficial transcript;
* Two letters of recommendation, one of which should directly address the applicant’s editing ability.

The deadline for applications is May 1, 2016. Assistants must be resident in Cambridge, MA during the year.

Strickland Brooch, 9th c., silver with gilt niello and blue glass.

The nine winners of the 2016 Dissertation Grants are:

Hope Emily Allen Dissertation Grant
Katherine Hindley (Yale Univ.), “‘On Parchment or on Bread’: Textual Magic in Medieval England”

John Boswell Dissertation Grant
Andrew Sears (Univ. of California, Berkeley), “Relics on the Market: The Cult of St. Ursula and the Hanseatic League, 1200-1500”

Helen Maud Cam Dissertation Grant
Alexis Miller (Univ. of Missouri – Columbia), “Fording the Severn: The Influence of Intermarriage and Kin Networks on the  Development of Identity in Shropshire and Montgomery, From the Norman Conquest to the Edwardian Conquest”

Grace Frank Dissertation Grant
Rachel Welsh (New York Univ.), “Proof in the Body: Ordeal, Justice, and the Physical Manifestation of Truth in Medieval Iberia, c. 1050-1300”

Étienne Gilson Dissertation Grant
Andrew Cuff (The Catholic Univ. of America), “The Cistercian Contribution to University Theology (1256-1399)”

Frederic C. Lane Dissertation Grant
Matthew Delvaux (Boston College), “Consuming Violence: Captivity and Slavery during the Viking Age”

Robert and Janet Lumiansky Grant
Alice Sullivan (Univ. of Michigan), “The Painted Fortified Monastic Churches of Moldavia: Bastions of Orthodoxy in a Post-Byzantine World”

E.K. Rand Dissertation Grant
Megan Welton (Univ. of Notre Dame), “Multiplex Virtus: A Comparative Study of Tenth-Century Queens and Queenship”

Charles T. Wood Dissertation Grant
Randall Pippenger (Princeton Univ.), “The Social and Economic Consequences of Crusading in the Age of Philip Augustus: A Case Study of the Aristocratic Families in the County of Champagne, 1175 to 1225”

The Medieval Academy, in collaboration with the Richard III Society-American Branch, offers five graduate student awards (in addition to the full-year Fellowship awarded in the fall) in memory of William B. and Maryloo Spooner Schallek, funded by a generous gift to the Richard III Society from the Schallek family. The Schallek Awards support graduate students conducting doctoral research in any relevant discipline dealing with late-medieval Britain (ca. 1350-1500). This year’s Schallek Awards are being granted to:

Helen Cushman (Harvard Univ.), “Producing Knowledge in the Middle English Cycle Plays”

Amanda Ewoldt (Univ. of Louisiana at Lafayette), “Conversion and Crusade: The Image of the Saracen in Thirteenth and Fourteenth Century English Romance”

Danielle Nicole Griego (Univ. of Missouri – Columbia), “Child Death, Grief and the Community in High and Late Medieval England”

Zachary Stone   (Univ. of Virginia), “Cities of God: Devotional Polity and Metropolitan Literature in Later Medieval London”

Amanda Joan Wetmore (Univ. of Toronto), “Exegetical Erotics in Medieval English Devotional Literature”

The latest issue of Speculum is now available on the new 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 91, Issue 2 (April 2016)

Articles

Torture and Confession in the Templar Interrogations at Caen, 28-29 October 1307
Sean L. Field

The Earls of Leicester, Sygerius Lucanus, and the Death of Seneca: Some Neglected Evidence for the Cultural Agency of the Norman Aristocracy
Paul Antony Hayward

The Sabatati: The Significance of Early Waldensian Shoes, c. 1184 -c. 1300
Adam L. Hoose

Reflecting (on) the Other: Jewish-Christian Relations in Cligès and MS Michael 569(*)
Naomi Howell

The Politics of Grief in the Outbreak of Civil War in France, 1407-1413
Emily J. Hutchison 

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

Anthony Kaldellis, The Byzantine Republic
Reviewed by Leonora Neville

Erik Kwakkel, ed., Manuscripts of the Latin Classics
Reviewed by Erika Kihlman

Alastair Minnis, The Cambridge Introduction to Chaucer
Reviewed by Peter Brown

Christian Raffensperger, Reimagining Europe: Kievan Rus’ in the Medieval World
Reviewed by David Goldfrank

Claire Sponsler, The Queen’s Dumbshows
Reviewed by Anthony Bale

Chris Wickham, Medieval Rome: Stability and Crisis of a City
Reviewed by Thomas F. X. Noble

 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.