The Medieval Academy Blog

To the Members of the Medieval Academy,

Voting in the Medieval Academy governance election is one of the most important means that members have to impact both the Academy and the future of medieval studies in North America. I am very pleased to announce the names of the Medieval Academy members who have generously agreed to stand for election to office in 2026:

President:
Haruko Momma (New York University, English)

1st Vice-President:
Thomas Burman (University of Notre Dame, History)

2nd Vice-President (three candidates for one position):
Marisa Galvez (Stanford Univ., Comparative Literature)
Sara S. (Sally) Poor (Princeton Univ., German)
Michelle Warren (Dartmouth College, Comparative Literature)

Council (eight candidates for four positions):
Mary Doyno (Sacamento State Univ. and Villa I Tatti, Religious Studies)
Brenna Duperron (University of Northern British Columbia, English)
Maren Clegg Hyer (Snow College, English)
Roberta Morosini (Univ. of California, Los Angeles, Italian)
Lynn Ramey (Vanderbilt Univ., French)
Catherine Saucier (Arizona State Univ., Musicology)
Anna Siebach-Larsen (Univ. of Rochester, Rossell Hope Robbins Library and Koller-Collins Center)
Don Wyatt (Middlebury College, History)

Nominating Committee (four candidates for two positions):
Sara McDougall (John Jay College of Criminal Justice – CUNY, History)
Jonathan Morton (Tulane Univ., Comparative Literature)
Julie Singer (Washington Univ., St. Louis, Comparative Literature)
Claire M. Waters (UC Davis, English)

Click here for more information about these candidates.

The election will be conducted in accordance with our By-Laws, as follows:

There are eight candidates for the four positions on the Council and four candidates for two openings on the Nominating Committee. As is our practice, the President and 1st Vice-President run unopposed; the position of 2nd Vice-President is contested among three candidates. The candidates for Council and 2nd Vice-President were selected by the Nominating Committee, charged with balancing demographic, geographic, professional, and specialization diversity while also considering the same facets of the incumbents. The candidates for the Nominating Committee were selected by the President, also charged with crafting a balanced slate.

Additional nominations by petition may be made as follows, in accordance with article 24 of the By-Laws:

Nominations of other members of the Academy for elected officers, Councillors, or members of the Nominating Committee may be made by written petition signed by at least seven members of the Academy. A nomination by petition may be for a single office, several offices, or an entire slate. Such petitions must be received by the Executive Director within twenty days of the circulation of the report of the Nominating Committee (article 23), unless the Council extends the period for making nominations by petition.

As the slate of candidates was announced on 29 September, the closing date for nomination by petition has been set at 11:59 PM, 19 October 2025. Additional information about the governance of the Academy can be found on our FAQ page:

http://medievalacademy.site-ym.com/page/FAQ

In addition to biographical information, each candidate has submitted a statement detailing their vision for the Academy and their reasons for wanting to participate in its governance. It is our hope that these statements will assist members in making informed choices about the governance of the Medieval Academy. These statements are online here.

As you consider these candidates, you may wish to take into account the demographics and specializations of the incumbents.

My thanks to the Nominating Committee for their careful and thoughtful work in establishing the slate of Council candidates. My thanks as well to President Peggy McCracken for proposing the slate of Nominating Committee candidates.

Electronic balloting will open on 30 October. If you would prefer to receive a paper ballot and have not received one in the past, please contact me.

Please vote and let your voice be heard. I look forward to your participation in the election of the leadership of the Medieval Academy of America.

– Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director

The end of the year is fast approaching, and it is time to renew your MAA membership for 2026, if you haven’t already. In addition to a subscription to Speculum – the premier journal of medieval studies – and online access to the entire run of the journal, your MAA membership provides you with numerous exclusive benefits, including:

Eligibility for:
• grants and fellowships to support your research
• subventions to support your publications
• travel support to share your scholarship
• prizes acknowledging your work

Opportunities to:
• collaborate with others on committees that serve our field
• nominate yourself and others for leadership posts
• stand for election to governance
• participate in our Annual Meeting

Your membership dues also help others in the field, providing mentoring and financial support for graduate students, junior scholars, and medievalists outside the tenure track. As we work towards a more expansive Middle Ages, your dues work to build a more inclusive Medieval Studies and support the highest-quality research in all disciplines. We sincerely hope that you will renew your valued membership in the Academy as we continue this work in 2026. You can easily renew your membership online or by logging in to your account on our website. Thank you for your support. Please consider, if your circumstances allow, adding a donation as you renew your membership. We look forward to supporting you and working with you in 2026 and beyond.

Peggy McCracken, President
Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director

Self-Nominate for MAA Committee Service:
Nomination forms due Dec. 1

Volunteer committee service is critically important to our mission, and we welcome your expertise and efforts. Even if you have already checked the relevant box on your MAA Member Profile page or you self-nominated for service last year, please confirm your specific area of interest and provide additional information by filling out this form to self-nominate for committee service in the upcoming cycle. You may also nominate a colleague.

See our FAQ page for information about how Committee members are selected. Committee members seated in the upcoming cycle will begin their three-year term of service in March 2025.

Click here for more information and to submit a nomination.

Thank you for your interest!

We are very pleased to announce our new partnership with the American Trust for the British Library! MAA grantwinners who need to conduct research at the British Library will now be eligible for an additional $2,500 Fellowship from ATBL to support that research. When you apply for an MAA grant, you may check a box indicating your interest in being considered for this supplementary Fellowship, should your MAA application be funded. We are extremely grateful to the ATBL for supporting our members in such a generous way!

The Medieval Academy of America invites applications for the following grants. Please note that applicants must be members in good standing at the time of application.

Birgit Baldwin Fellowship

The Birgit Baldwin Fellowship in French Medieval History provides a grant of $20,000 to support a graduate student in a North American university who is researching and writing a significant dissertation for the Ph.D. on any subject in French medieval history that can be realized only by sustained research in the archives and libraries of France. The fellowship helps defray research and living expenses for the equivalent of an academic year of study. It may be renewed for a second year upon demonstration of satisfactory progress. Applications must be submitted by 15 November 2025 for funding beginning in September 2026.

Fellows Research Awards

The Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America have donated funds to support two research awards for members of the Medieval Academy who do not have access to research funding. Two Awards of $5,000 will be funded each year to Ph.D. candidates and/or non-tenure-track scholars to support research in medieval studies. The awards will help fund travel and/or access expenses to consult original sources, archives, manuscripts, works of art, or monuments in situ. To apply for a Fellows Research Award, submit the application form and attachment by October 15, 2025.

MAA/CARA Conference Grant

The MAA/CARA Conference Grant will be awarded annually to a regional or consortial Medieval Studies Program or Association to support an annual regional or consortial conference taking place the year after the application is submitted (for example, applications will be accepted in 2025 for conferences taking place in 2026). Awards will be based on proposals adjudicated by the Academy’s CARA Committee. One (1) grant of $1,000 will be awarded each year. (Deadline 15 October 2025)

Schallek Fellowship

Funded by the Richard III Society, American Branch. As of July 2024, the scope and amount of the Schallek program have changed in accordance with the Society’s instructions, as follows: “Applications will be solicited from 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. ‘Late Medieval’ will be defined broadly as the period c.1350-1500 or so.” The Schallek Fellowship provides a one-year grant of $40,000 to support Ph.D. dissertation research. (Deadline 15 October 2025 for funding beginning in September 2026)

Travel Grants

The Medieval Academy provides a limited number of travel grants to help Academy members who hold PhDs but have no access to institutional travel funding, attend conferences to present their work. Exceptions to the PhD requirement may be made for unaffiliated or contingent scholars who are active in Medieval Studies (Deadline 1 November 2025 for meetings to be held between 16 February and 31 August 2026)

Through its Publication Prize program, the Medieval Academy of America aims to accomplish three goals:

1) Honoring and promoting outstanding scholarship produced by medievalists;

2) Supporting authors in any medieval field and at all career levels by raising the visibility of their scholarship;

3) Acknowledging the work of publishers of all kinds.

Award-winning publications scholarship should function as a model of current best practices in Medieval Studies and as a model for the future of the field. Although the various Prizes have specific eligibility criteria, general procedures and requirements are as follows:

1) In contrast to past years, authors of submitted books need not be members of the Medieval Academy of America.

2) All prize winners will receive a complimentary one-year MAA membership in addition to the prize.

3) All publishers are eligible, whether non-profit or for-profit.

4) Nominations may be submitted by authors or by publishers, but all submissions must use the central Publications Prize Portal. Please note that incomplete or late submissions will not be considered.

5) Ordinarily a nomination should go forward in a single category for a given year. Authors and publishers should contact the Executive Director LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org for queries about exceptions to this policy.

6) Monographs that have previously been awarded an MAA Publication Prize are not eligible for other MAA Publication Prizes except for the Haskins Medal.

7) Submissions may be by hardcopy and/or eBook.

8) All submissions and supporting documents must be received by 15 October.

9) Prizes will be announced in February and awarded during the annual meeting of the Medieval Academy of America.

10) Authors need not be residents of North America, but all submissions must be written in English.

Monograph Prizes:

John Nicholas Brown Prize: Best First Monograph

Byzantine Studies Prize: Best Monograph in Byzantine Studies

Karen Gould Prize: Best Medieval Art History Monograph

Haskins Medal: Best Monograph in Medieval Studies

Jerome Singerman Prize: Best Second Monograph

Article Prizes:

Article Prize in Critical Race Studies: Best Article in the field of Medieval Critical Race Studies

Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize: Best Early-Career Article

Other Formats:

Digital Humanities and Multimedia Studies Prize: Best DH Project

Monica Green Prize: For an exceptional project (for example, a publication, exhibit, performance, or DH project) that shows the importance of studying the medieval past to understand the present.

The Medieval Academy of America’s Committee on Centers and Regional Organizations (CARA) invites nominations to fill an upcoming vacancy on its Executive Committee. With a special focus upon teaching at all levels, CARA strives to assist institutions and individual medievalists in meeting the challenges that face medieval studies in the classroom, the library, and other institutional settings locally and nationally.

Members of the Executive Committee serve four-year terms; in addition to working with the CARA Chair on programming, outreach, and curricular initiatives, each member serves on two of CARA’s four subcommittees responsible for the CARA Teaching Award, the CARA Robert Kendrick Service Prize, the CARA Regional Conference Grant, and the MAA-CARA Graduate Student Summer Scholarships. Members of the CARA Executive Committee also help organize the CARA plenary at the annual Medieval Academy meeting and various CARA zoom sessions throughout the academic year.

Service on the CARA Executive Committee is open to all members in good standing of the Medieval Academy of America, who may nominate themselves or be nominated by another individual. We are particularly interested in nominees who are familiar with medieval studies programs and curricula in Texas and the southwest United States. Nominations should include the following:

1. Name of nominee;
2. Nominee’s institutional or professional affiliation (including that of independent scholar);
3. A brief (c. 250-word) statement indicating the nominee’s qualifications for Executive Committee service, including their contributions to the areas of teaching, center or program administration, and/or professional collaboration and development in the field of Medieval Studies.

In accordance with CARA’s Policies and Procedures, nominations will be accepted until 1 November 2025 and reviewed thereafter by the CARA Executive Committee, which will forward its recommended candidate for approval by the Medieval Academy’s Council. The term of service for new members will begin at the conclusion of the Annual Meeting in March 2026. Please send nominations, as well as any questions or requests for further information, to the CARA Chair, Lauren Mancia (laurenmancia@brooklyn.cuny.edu).