The Medieval Academy Blog

MAA News – 89th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy

Posted on May 25, 2014 by Chris

The 89th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy was held at UCLA from 10-12 April and was, by all accounts, a great success. More than 375 attendees heard 158 papers and three plenaries, enjoyed wine and hors d’oeuvres on the Grand Horizon Terrace, and basked in the sunshine of southern California. Special events included a tour of the Getty Center, a master class on Byzantine art, an exhibit of medieval and Renaissance manuscripts curated by Richard Rouse, and a splendid closing reception at the Getty Villa in Malibu where attendees were treated to a private viewing of the major exhibition “Heaven and Earth: Art of Byzantium from Greek Collections“. Our thanks to the UCLA Center for Medieval & Renaissance Studies and to the Getty Center for organizing and implementing such a successful gathering.

The following awards were presented at the Business Meeting:

Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize: Paul Milliman, “Ludus Scaccarii: Games and Governance in Twelfth-Century England” in Chess in the Middle Ages and Early Modern Age, ed. Daniel O’Sullivan (De Gruyter, 2012)

John Nicholas Brown Prize: Elina Gertsman, The Dance of Death in the Middle Ages (Brepols, 2010)

The Haskins Medal: Ronald Witt, The Two Latin Cultures (Cambridge Univ. Press, 2012)

Robert L. Kindrick-CARA Award for Outstanding Service to Medieval Studies: Jerry Singerman (Univ. of Pennsylvania Press)

CARA Awards for Excellence in Teaching: Phillip Adamo (Augsburg Coll.) and Charles Wright (Univ. of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign)

Best Graduate Student Paper: Andrew Richmond (Ohio State University), “‘The broken schippus he ther fonde’: Beaches, Wrecks, and the Human Costs of Investment in Middle English Romance”

Graduate Student Travel Bursaries were awarded to:

Alice Isabella Sullivan (University of Michigan), “Monastic Architecture in Moldavia as a Site of Encounter Between Byzantium and the West”

Francesca Tuoni (University of New Mexico), “Arabisms and Hospitallers”

Erika Joy Johnson Tritle (University of Chicago Divinity School), “Baptismal Theology and Civil Nobility: A Shotgun Wedding in Fifteen-Century Castile?”

Esther Liberman Cuenca (Fordham University), “The Medium and the Message: Borough Custumals in Context”

Justin L. Barker (Purdue University), “Multiple Encounters of Gender and Religious Identity in Bevis of Hampton”

Eileen Kim (University of Toronto), “Charitable Bequests and the Cultivation of a Spiritual Economy in the London Commissary Court Wills, 1350-1485”

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Olivia Remie Constable Fund

Posted on May 23, 2014 by Chris

Dear colleagues,

The friends and family of Olivia Remie Constable invite you to join them in establishing the Olivia Remie Constable Award for junior, adjunct and unaffiliated scholars, to be presented annually in her memory.

Remie was the director of the Medieval Institute at the University of Notre Dame and a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America who died in April 2014 in the prime of her life and distinguished career. A scholar and teacher specializing in the fields of interactions between medieval Christians, Muslims and Jews; the Mediterranean world; economic and social history; the history of medieval cities and urban life; and medieval Spain, Remie held a prominent place in Medieval Studies.

Remie was a consummate scholar who was aware that gaps in funding exist for emerging scholars. The Constable Award, which will be administered by the Medieval Academy of America, will be awarded annually to an emerging junior faculty member, adjunct or unaffiliated scholar (broadly understood: post-doctoral, pre-tenure) for research and travel. The award is meant to reflect the high standards of Remie’s scholarship as well as her broader interdisciplinary interests in Medieval Studies (as exemplified by her teaching, her leadership, and her service to the discipline). Remie’s family agree that this award will be an appropriate and effective way to honor her memory.

The Olivia Remie Constable Award will be granted on the basis of the quality of applicants’ proposed projects and estimations of the ways in which an award will facilitate their research. The Award may be used to fund travel to archives or scholarly conferences; for acquiring copies of documents; to pay for images, equipment, hardware, software, or digital access; and/or to purchase library privileges if necessary. Preference will go to scholars and teachers who have limited or no institutional support. The Medieval Academy will establish a committee to adjudicate the Constable Award, of which at least one member will be a junior scholar not on a tenure track.

A special donation site has been set up here:

http://www.medievalacademy.org/donations/fund.asp?id=10951

Donations may also be sent by check to:

The Olivia Remie Constable Fund
Medieval Academy of America
17 Dunster St., Suite 202
Cambridge, MA 02138

With your help, the Olivia Remie Constable Award will soon be permanently endowed. We look forward to announcing the first Awardee at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy at the University of Notre Dame next March.

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Jobs for Medievalists

Posted on May 22, 2014 by Chris

Associate Director for Collections, Research & Education
Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Yale University, New Haven,CT

Rank: Librarian 4–5
Salary minimums: L4 = $80,000 and L5 = $102,000

Requisition: 25182BR

www.yale.edu/jobs and search for job number 25182BR

Position Focus

The Beinecke Library Rare Book and Manuscript Library is Yale University’s principal repository for literary archives, early manuscripts, and rare books. One of the preeminent rare book and manuscript libraries in North America, the Beinecke Library’s collections are internationally known and heavily used by Yale faculty and students as well as scholars from around the world. Its current renovation of public and teaching spaces derives from that commitment. For additional information on the Beinecke Library, please visit the Library’s website at http://beinecke.library.yale.edu.

Reporting to the Director of the Beinecke Library and serving as a member of the Library’s senior leadership team, the Associate Director provides strategic leadership for and manages the Library’s Collections, Research & Education Department. The Associate Director is responsible for developing and implementing a strategic plan for enhancing and effectively managing the library’s extensive outreach and academic programs for Yale students, faculty and the international scholarly community. In close association with the Director, the Associate Director coordinates the collection development efforts of the Library’s curatorial staff.

The Library’s Collections, Research & Education Department consists of ten full time staff which includes seven curators (who are responsible for collection development, interpretation of the collections, exhibitions, and outreach to Yale students, faculty, and the international scholarly community), a research librarian (who provides research support and outreach and education to Yale faculty, students, and visiting scholars), an exhibition assistant, and an administrative

Education, Skills and Experience
Requirements include:Master’s degree from an ALA-accredited library school or equivalent accredited degree, or a post-graduate degree in museum studies, humanities or other related discipline, and a minimum of 8 years of professional related experience. Qualified candidates will have demonstrated ability to provide leadership and direction in a research library; have managed staff, budgets and capital projects; have demonstrated understanding of current trends in special collections librarianship and digital humanities; and have a strong commitment to collection building and to innovative public service programs.

Preferred:Ph.D. in humanities or related field; experience developing innovative programs and outreach initiatives; experience curating exhibits and managing publication programs.

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The Sherry L. Reames Graduate Student Travel Award for Hagiographical Studies

Posted on May 21, 2014 by Chris

From The Hagiography Society:

The Hagiography Society is pleased to announce the creation of the Sherry L. Reames Graduate Student Travel Award for Hagiographical Studies. Named in honor of the beloved founder and long-time leader of the Society, the award provides $300 to be used toward travel to present at the International Congress on Medieval Studies, held annually at the University of Western Michigan in Kalamazoo, MI.

Eligibility
Students enrolled in a graduate program (anywhere in the world) whose paper has been accepted for inclusion in the program of the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI, are eligible to apply.

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Call for Papers -Authority and Materiality in the Italian Songbook

Posted on May 17, 2014 by Chris

Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Binghamton University

Authority and Materiality in the Italian Songbook:
From the Medieval Lyric to the Early-Modern Madrigal
May 1 and 2, 2015

In recent decades, scholars of medieval and early-modern texts have increasingly rejected as object of study the coherent, corrected text of the modern critical edition in favor of the instability and singularity of individual manuscripts and prints. Academic interest has turned particularly to the construction of authorial identity in late medieval and early-modern lyric anthologies and music books through scribal and authorial choices about the visual disposition and ordering of individual poems and songs. Francesco Petrarca (1304–1374) stands as a key figure in the development of the single-author poetry book, exhibiting in his autobiographical Canzoniere an acute concern with the minutia of the material production of texts and a high degree of authorial self-consciousness in the arrangement of his poems into a coherent narrative, which set a precedent for centuries to come. Petrarchism became the dominant idiom of European poetry in subsequent centuries, as well as the primary thematic register of the sixteenth-century madrigal, a musical genre in which composers also increasingly asserted authorial control over the appearance of their songs in printed music books.

We invite paper or session proposals from musicologists and literary and book historians with an interest in the shared material sources of Italian poetry and music from the thirteenth to the seventeenth centuries, focusing especially on Petrarch and his legacy. Martin Eisner (Duke University) and Giuseppe Gerbino (Columbia University) will be keynote speakers. Conference highlights will include a public concert of Petrarch’s poetry in musical settings by the early music ensemble Blue Heron; we also anticipate publishing a volume of selected conference proceedings.

Of particular interest are papers or sessions that address the following (and related) topics:

Constructions of authorship in early Italian and Occitan lyric collections
The 13^th-century Italian “divorce” between poetry and music
Petrarchan reforms in scribal practices and methods of book production
Evoking song in Petrarch’s Canzoniere and other poetic works
Composers and poets in 14^th-century poetic anthologies and music codices
15^th-century poesia per musica and “missing” musical sources
Pietro Bembo’s Petrarch: 16^th-century sources
Autobiographical poetic practices and women as petrarchiste
Organizational strategies in madrigal books
Lyric poetry and the culture of print
The rhetoric of authorship in dedications and prefaces
The distribution and commodification of lyric anthologies
Oral vs. written transmission (reading, speaking, singing)

Papers should not exceed 20 minutes in length and may be delivered in English or Italian.

Send abstracts (maximum 500 words) and brief CVs by November 1, 2014, to cemers@binghamton.edu. Inquiries may be directed to Professors Olivia Holmes (oholmes@binghamton.edu) or Paul Schleuse (schleuse@binghamton.edu).

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MA Program in Mediterranean Studies (Malta)

Posted on May 16, 2014 by Chris

The University of Malta is proud to announce a new M.A. Program in Mediterranean Studies which will be run for the first time as from October 2014. The M.A. in Mediterranean Studies (MAMS) is an innovative interdisciplinary programme of studies offered by various departments from within the Faculty of Arts of the University of Malta; the participating departments include History, Anthropological Sciences, Classics and Archaeology, Geography, History of Art, International Relations, Oriental Studies, Philosophy and Sociology. The Faculty of Laws and the School of Performing Arts are also participating.

The Mediterranean has been a focus of academic interest at the University of Malta for decades, with the Faculty of Arts pioneering an international tradition that has attracted the interest of scholars and students, inspired Mediterranean initiatives abroad, and locally generated a pool of expertise with several recognised authorities in the field.

A distinctive feature of this tradition is its address of the Mediterranean as a whole, rather than fragments of it, in recognition of the regionís nature of a global microcosm. The M.A. is meant to serve as a compass to assist the curious and enterprising to chart their own course into the dazzling diversity and unity of the Mediterranean by delving into the long-term processes and transformations in the region, the relations between humans and their environment, encounters of civilizations, historical and contemporary Euro-Mediterranean relations, that together help us understand the world we live in. This M.A. is intended for students seeking a learning experience that is both challenging intellectually and relevant to a variety of career applications.

For information please visit http://www.um.edu.mt/arts/MAmediterraneanstudies and the Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/uom.mamedstudies

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Announcing the Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Chris

From Stanford Univ.:

The Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA) at Stanford is proud to announce a new graduate certificate in digital humanities program, starting fall quarter 2014. Please see below for details.

Summary

The Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities (GCDH) meets a growing need among the humanities for training in digital methods by leveraging existing resources at Stanford University. The GCDH program will draw upon the community of expertise in the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis (CESTA). Over the past several years, dozens of graduate students have taken classes taught by CESTA affiliated faculty and postdoctoral fellows, and participated in workshops and seminars sponsored by CESTA. The CESTA Graduate Certificate in Digital Humanities offers a formal structure for this activity and allows graduate students to acquire and deepen their technical and conceptual skills as well as to strengthen their position in the competitive job market within and beyond the academy.

The GCDH seeks to strike a balance between the cultivation of technical skills and their practical application within project-based Digital Humanities research. The program is meant to be relatively lightweight in terms of specific requirements and flexible as to content and timing in order to best support the work students are doing in their home departments. Core classes and exposure to the CESTA research community will ensure that students leave the program with solid skills and the experience of learning in a cohort environment.

Completion of the program will result in both a Certificate, signed by the CESTA Director and the Chair of the doctoral student’s home department, and, through the program, the student will also develop a digital portfolio suitable for the job market.

Click here to see the rest of the posting.

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Jobs for Medievalists

Posted on May 15, 2014 by Chris

Departmental Lecturer in English Literature (650 – 1550)

FACULTY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE in association with Exeter College

Grade 7: Salary in the range £29,837 – £31,644 p.a.

http://www.ox.ac.uk/about/jobs/academic/index/ac15229j/

Applications are invited for the post of Departmental Lecturer in English Literature (650-1550). The appointment will be for a fixed period of 12 months from 1 October 2014 to 30 September 2014 to provide replacement teaching for Dr Helen Spencer during her tenure of a Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowship.

The postholder will be expected to provide undergraduate tutorial teaching for Exeter College, and up to 16 hours of faculty lectures or classes per year. Within this, the main focus of the Departmental Lecturer’s teaching responsibilities will be undergraduate lecturing on Medieval literature, and providing teaching for the MSt course (650 – 1550 strand). She/He will also undertake dissertation supervision, examining, and the normal duties of a college tutor, including admissions.

The successful candidate have a research and publication record in Medieval English Literature, preferably with a specialism in Old and/or Middle English, and must possess a doctorate in an appropriate area. She/He must also have experience of undergraduate and graduate teaching.

Applications for this vacancy are to be made online. To apply for this role and for further details, including the job description and selection criteria, please click on the link below:

www.recruit.ox.ac.uk/pls/hrisliverecruit/erq_jobspec_version_4.jobspec?p_id=112993

The closing date for applications is 12.00 noon on Thursday 5 June 2014.