The Medieval Academy Blog

To encourage the integration of Byzantine studies within the scholarly community and medieval studies in particular, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for a Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at the 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 11–13, 2023. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

The 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies will include traditional in-person sessions, virtual sessions, and new blended-format sessions that make it possible for speakers to present and audiences to attend both in-person and online.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website (https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/58th-icms). The deadline for submission is May 16, 2022.

If the proposed session is approved, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 4 session participants (presenters and moderator) up to $600 maximum for scholars based in North America and up to $1200 maximum for those coming from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided. Eligible expenses include conference registration, transportation, and food and lodging. Receipts are required for reimbursement. For scholars participating remotely, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse participants for conference registration.

For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/58th-icms.

Please contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.

Medieval Studies is a particularly fruitful field of study, especially in combination with other areas, Translation Studies being no exception. Indeed, the combination of these two areas is of extreme importance, providing a better understanding of medieval texts, as well as a broader understanding of the meaning, value, and consequences of translation within this timeframe. Despite its importance, medieval translation remains poorly researched and promoted in academia. In an effort to fill this gap, submissions are invited for a special issue of the open-access journal, Translation Matters, on the subject of Translation in and from the Middle Ages.
We welcome articles dealing one of the following topics:

• The phenomenon of translation during the Middle Ages:
  • Theoretical articles exploring the concept of translatio in the Middle Ages, as well as the theory behind the practice of translation in the medieval period
  • Case studies dealing with the translation or transmission of different texts, genres or concepts between two or more medieval vernaculars or between Latin (or another lingua franca or lingua sacra) and a vernacular
  • Medieval matters and cycles involving translational processes
• The translation of medieval texts into contemporary languages:
  • Theoretical articles exploring methodologies, strategies and problems of the translation of medieval texts into contemporary languages
  • Case studies on the translation of specific texts or concepts
  • Contemporary reception and neo-medievalism: theory and practices.

Articles, in English or in Portuguese, should be 6000-8000 words in length, including references and footnotes, and be formatted in accordance with the guidelines given on the journal’s website. Papers should be uploaded onto the site by 31st October 2022. http://ojs.letras.up.pt/index.php/tm/index.

As part of its ongoing commitment to Byzantine studies, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for a Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at the 48th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference to be held at the University of California, Los Angeles, November 3–6, 2022. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website (https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/48th-bsc). The deadline for submission is April 22, 2022.

If the proposed session is accepted, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 5 session participants (presenters and chair) up to $600 maximum for scholars based in North America and up to $1200 maximum for those coming from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided. Eligible expenses include conference registration, transportation, and food and lodging. Receipts are required for reimbursement. For scholars participating remotely, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse participants for conference registration.

For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/48th-bsc.

Please contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.

Priests’ Wives and Concubines in the Medieval West (800-1200) / Femmes et concubines de prêtres en Occident (800-1200)

To be held at Stanford University (California, USA), October 27-28, 2022.

This conference focuses our attention on medieval women married to or living with priests, with the goal of restoring priests’ wives to scholarship on gender, spirituality, family life, and the church, particularly in western Europe.  Our purpose is to excavate a history of clerical wives and concubines from the early ninth to the end of the twelfth century, that is from the Carolingian to the Gregorian reform.  By the end of this period, celibacy was largely established as an expectation for priests (even if clerical continence was never absolute).

The planned conference will explore the lives and circumstances of priests’ women, the sources that can reveal or shed light on their status or experiences, and the various roles—social as well as cultural—that they played within the family, their local communities, and the church more broadly.

We welcome paper proposals on a range of topics:

• the various roles that priests’ wives played: as patrons of church building, owners and donors of books, makers of liturgical textiles, etc.
• their importance to medieval communities and society; their impact on spirituality and religious life; their literacy and cultural role
• the concrete effects on women of the celibacy rulings (changes in terms of marital status; eviction of clerical wives from their homes, the cathedral or even the city precincts) and their reactions (resistance, violence…)
• the possible discrepancy between the legal and social status of clerical wives
• the concealment or erasure of priests’ wives from written records

Sessions will generally comprise two twenty-minute papers, followed by a response and discussion.  Proposals for round-table discussion or specific themes, or short presentations of primary source materials are also welcome.  We particularly encourage proposals from graduate students and early career or non-traditional scholars.  Please feel free to reach out to us with any thoughts or questions – we are eager to hear from scholars working on, or interested in, this topic.

Organizers: Fiona Griffiths (Stanford University) and Émilie Kurdziel (Université de Poitiers)

Submissions should include a brief abstract (max. 300 words) and a curriculum vitae.  Please submit both (as .pdf or MS word attachments) by email to fgriffit@stanford.edu and emilie.kurdziel@univ-poitiers.fr by May 31, 2022.