Dear Members of the Medieval Academy,

The 90th annual meeting of the Medieval Academy of America takes place this year on March 12-14, 2015, at the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. We at the Medieval Institute will be serving as your host, and now welcome you to join us. Registration for the conference is now available, or as they say, gone “live.”

Please go to:
https://notredame-web.ungerboeck.com/coe/coe_p1_all.aspx?oc=10&cc=ALLREG

There you will see a calendar of events for Notre Dame’s conference center. Go to March 2015, then select the link for the ‘Medieval Academy of America’. Here you will also find direct links to conference hotels offering discounted rates and a general overview of conference activities. The discounted rates for attendees remain in effect only through February 11, 2015, and so I urge you to register soon.

Full details concerning the program as well as transportation and related matters may also be found on the Medieval Institute’s web site at: www.medieval.nd.edu/maa15.

This year’s conference features some fifty sessions covering a wide range of disciplines, with plenary addresses by Elizabeth Eva Leach of the University of Oxford, William Chester Jordan of Princeton University, and Lawrence Nees of the University of Delaware. Also scheduled are concerts, movies, exhibitions, interactive installations, tours, and a digital model of Hildegard of Bingen’s Cosmic Egg. To stay abreast of all conference matters, visit our Facebook page (www.facebook.com/maaNotreDame2015) or subscribe to our Twitter feed (@medievalND).

If you have concerns about travel or any other logistical matters in relation to the conference, please email us (maa15@nd.edu), or call 574-631-8304 for further assistance. We want to make your visit go smoothly and can help you troubleshoot specific problems. Whether you are visiting Notre Dame for the first time or returning to a familiar place, be assured of a warm welcome.

I look forward to seeing you in March.

John Van Engen
Robert M. Conway Director of the Medieval Institute University of Notre Dame

The end of the year is now quickly approaching, and we encourage you to renew your membership in the Medieval Academy for 2015 as soon as possible. If you have not already paid your 2015 membership dues, please do so by 31 December 2014.

Click here to renew online for 2015. You will need to sign in with your username and password; if you have forgotten either, please contact us at info@themedievalacademy.org. While you’re online, don’t forget to take advantage of the reduced subscriptions to several online bibliographies and the ACLS Humanities E-Book Library that are available to Medieval Academy members. We invite you to take this opportunity to explore our website and, after signing in with your username and password, update your personal homepage so that you can connect with other members with similar interests. As a new feature, members can now use their personal MAA homepage to indicate an interest in being considered to serve on one of our adjudication committees or to review books for Speculum. In this way we hope to engage more members in our work.

You can easily pay your dues through the MAA website. The dues and donations categories are outlined on the website with links you can follow for further explanation. If you have already renewed, thank you. If you are a Corresponding Fellow, an Honorary Life Member, or a Life Member, no dues are payable, but we hope that you will consider making a gift to the Academy here. We encourage all members to consider supplementing their membership by becoming a Sustaining or Contributing member or by remembering the Academy with a bequest as part of our Legacy Society. In addition, you may want to give a gift membership to a colleague or student; please contact us at info@themedievalacademy.org for more information.

If you prefer to renew by mail, our traditional paper membership form can be printed here.

With a healthy fiscal outlook, increased digital offerings, and expanded services, the Medieval Academy has more to offer members than ever before. We sincerely hope that you will renew soon and continue your valued membership in the Academy. We look forward to working with you in developing the future of the Medieval Academy of America and of medieval studies in North America and beyond. Click here to renew.

A 14th-century manuscript image of King John hunting (London, British Library, Cotton MS Claudius D II, f. 116r)

The Medieval Academy of America invites proposals for panels at the 2016 meeting of the American Historical Association in Atlanta, Georgia, January 7-10, 2016. The theme of the 2016 Meeting is “Global Migrations: Empires, Nations, and Neighbors.” 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. First, members of the Medieval Academy submit draft session descriptions to the MAA’s AHA Program Committee by emailing them to the committee chair, Maureen C. Miller (mcmiller@berkeley.edu) by February 6, 2015. 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.

Second, if approved by the committee, the organizer submits the session proposal directly to the AHA (using their on-line system) by the deadline of February 15, 2015 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.

Initial N: from James I of Aragon Overseeing a Court of Law: Unknown Spanish, about 1290 – 1310. MS. LUDWIG XIV 6, FOL. 72V

MAA Dissertation Grants (deadline 15 February):
The nine annual Medieval Academy Dissertation Grants support advanced graduate students who are writing Ph.D. dissertations on medieval topics. The $2,000 grants help defray research expenses. Click here for more information.

Schallek Awards (deadline 15 February):
The five annual Schallek awards support graduate students conducting doctoral research in any relevant discipline dealing with late-medieval Britain (ca. 1350-1500). The $2,000 awards help defray research expenses. Click here for more information.

MAA/GSC Grant for Innovation in Community-Building and Professionalization (deadline 15 February):
The inaugural MAA/GSC Grant will be awarded 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. Click here for more information.

Olivia Remie Constable Award (deadline 15 February)
Two Olivia Remie Constable Awards of $1,500 each will be granted to emerging junior faculty, adjunct or unaffiliated scholars (broadly understood: post-doctoral, pre-tenure) for research and travel. Click here for more information.

Applicants for these and other MAA programs must be members in good standing of the Medieval Academy. Please contact the Executive Director for more information about these and other MAA programs.

Fishermen. Abbey Bible. J. Paul Getty Museum, MS 107. Italian, probably Bologna, about 1250 – 1262. Tempera and gold leaf on parchment.

The GSC was established in 2008 “to act on behalf of the graduate student members of the Academy in voicing their concerns about medieval studies and promoting their participation both within the Academy and the broader academic community.” Now is your chance to get involved in the GSC leadership by applying to serve on the GSC Committee. Click here for more information about the self-nomination process (deadline 31 January).

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

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) has announced a new grant opportunity, the Public Scholar Program, intended to support well-researched books in the humanities that have been conceived and written to reach a broad readership. Books supported through the Public Scholar Program might present a narrative history, tell the stories of important individuals, analyze significant texts, provide a synthesis of ideas, revive interest in a neglected subject, or examine the latest thinking on a topic. Most importantly, they should present significant humanities topics in a way that is accessible to general readers.

The Public Scholar Program is open to both independent scholars and individuals affiliated with scholarly institutions. It offers a stipend of $4,200 per month for a period of six to twelve months. The maximum stipend is $50,400 for a twelve-month period. Applicants must have previously published a book or monograph with a university or commercial press, or articles and essays that reach a wide readership.

Application guidelines and a list of F.A.Q.’s for the Public Scholar Program are available on the NEH’s website at http://www.neh.gov/grants/research/public-scholar-program. The application deadline for the first cycle is March 3, 2015. Recipients may begin the term of the grant as early as October 1, 2015 or as late as September 1, 2016.

The official press release for the new program is available here:
http://www.neh.gov/news/press-release/2014-12-01.

The Medieval Academy office will be closed Dec. 24 – Jan. 2. All of us in the Medieval Academy office wish you a very happy holiday season. We look forward to working with you in 2015.