The Medieval Academy Blog

Rebecca Lynn Winer receives 2023 Bonnie Wheeler Fellowship Award

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Chris

(Dallas, TX) Rebecca Lynn Winer, associate professor at Villanova University, is the recipient of the 2023 Bonnie Wheeler Fellowship.

Established to honor well-known medievalist Bonnie Wheeler, The Bonnie Wheeler Fellowship Fund of The Dallas Foundation supports the research of women medievalists with tenure below the rank of full professor. In addition to a generous stipend, each recipient is paired with a distinguished mentor in the field who engages with the recipient and her project to its successful completion. The fellowship aims to help women who have been at the associate level for too long to get “unstuck” and move to full professor. In addition, the Fellowship cultivates women as academic leaders.

Rebecca Lynn Winer will receive the $25,000 fellowship and the support of a mentor in her field as she completes her research in breastfeeding, mothering, sexuality, and reproductive work among free and enslaved women in Medieval Catalonia and beyond. The fellowship will allow Professor Winer to work on her book project, Sweet Milk? Wet Nurses, Mothers, and the Medieval Jews and Christians of Catalonia and Beyond, which deals with breastfeeding as a central concern in the lives of most medieval women. The economy of women’s bodies and their work as caregivers entails biopolitics of medieval religious difference and slavery, Christian-Jewish relations, and global connections from Europe to Latin America.

Chair of the Selection Committee, Professor Anne Yardley, Drew Theological School (retired), noted that the committee expressed “great enthusiasm for Professor Winer’s ground-breaking book project which ranges across geographical boundaries in methodological approach, across linguistic worlds in Latin, Hebrew and Aramaic, and across wide-ranging archival sources. We are eager to see this cross-cultural, interdisciplinary book come to fruition.”

Professor Winer received her PhD from the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA). Her first book, Women, Wealth, and Community in Perpignan c.1250-1300: Christians, Jews, and Enslaved Muslims in a Medieval Mediterranean Town (Ashgate Publishing Company, 2006) was shortlisted for the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship Book Prize, and another work which she co-edited with Federica Francesconi, Jewish Women’s History from Antiquity to the Present (Wayne State University Press, 2021) was “the finalist” for the Barbara Dobkin Award, the National Jewish Book Award in the category of Women’s Studies.

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Online Lecture: Divine King or Sacrilegious Upstart? The Portrait of Emperor Yǝkunno Amlak in Gännätä Maryam

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Chris

East of Byzantium is pleased to announce the next lecture in its 2022–2023 lecture series.

Tuesday, March 21, 2023 | 12:00 PM EDT | Zoom
Divine King or Sacrilegious Upstart? The Portrait of Emperor Yǝkunno Amlak in Gännätä Maryam
Jacopo Gnisci | University College London

In the third quarter of the thirteenth century Yǝkunno Amlak led a rebellion against the Zagwes – a line of Christian rulers who had been in control of most of the Empire of Ethiopia since at least the first half of the twelfth century. He initiated a line that would rule the country until the twentieth century: the Solomonic dynasty. Apart from these general facts, we know relatively little about the life of the first emperor of this dynasty. In this paper I hope to further our understanding of Yǝkunno Amlak’s reign and visual strategies by focusing on his only known contemporary portrait in the church of Gännätä Maryam. By analysing this image in its wider setting, I aim to shed some light on its socio-political background and reflect on the reactions it might have triggered.

Jacopo Gnisci is a Lecturer in the Art and Visual Cultures of the Global South at University College London and a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Africa, Oceania, and the America at the British Museum. He is the co-Principal Investigator of the projects Demarginalizing medieval Africa: Images, texts, and identity in early Solomonic Ethiopia (1270-1527) (AHRC Grant Ref. no. AH/V002910/1; DFG Projektnummer 448410109) and Material Migrations: Mamluk Metalwork across Afro-Eurasia (Gerda Henkel Stiftung).

Advance registration required. Register: https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/

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

An East of Byzantium lecture. EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center that explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

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Call for Sessions: Mary Jaharis Center Sponsored Panel, 49th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Chris

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 49th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference to be held at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Canada, October 26–29, 2023. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

The conference will be in-person only.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is April 3, 2023.

If the proposed session is accepted, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 5 session participants (presenters and chair) up to $800 maximum for scholars based in North America and up to $1400 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. Participants must participate in the conference in-person to receive funding. The Mary Jaharis Center regrets that it cannot reimburse participants who have last-minute cancellations and are unable to attend the conference.

For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/49th-bsc.

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

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Call for Papers – Frontiers, Borders, & Borderlands in the Early Global World

Posted on March 10, 2023 by Chris

The officers of UCLA MEMSA announce this year’s conference, “Frontiers, Borders, & Borderlands in the Early Global World,” to be held in the UCLA Humanities Seminar Room, 306 Royce Hall, on June 2, 2023, as a hybrid event. MEMSA invites submissions from graduate students in any discipline of medieval and early modern studies, at UCLA and beyond. Abstracts of 250 words are due April 10. Please email them to memsa.ucla@gmail.com. Acceptances will be sent by April 20. More information at https://cmrs.ucla.edu/memsa/cfp-frontiers-borders-borderlands-in-the-early-global-world/

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MAA Graduate Student Committee Webinar – Medievalists Beyond the Academy

Posted on March 8, 2023 by Chris

MAA Graduate Student Committee Webinar:
Medievalists Beyond the Academy

Join the MAA Graduate Student Committee on March 29th, 2023 at 7 pm EST for a panel on employment for medievalists outside of what we traditionally envision as the “academy” (university-based research and teaching). From grant writing and archival management to secondary education and academic publishing, our participants represent a wide range of experience levels and professional opportunities. In this conversation moderated by GSC members Kersti Francis and Will Beattie, panelists will share their pathways from their PhD to their current position, followed by a live Q and A with questions submitted by our audience. We hope you can join us!

Panelists include:

Dr. Joaneath Spicer, James A. Murnaghan Curator of European Art 1400-1700 at the Walters Art Museum
Dr. Lucy Hinnie, Wikimedian-in-Residence at the British Library
Dr. Kacie Morgan, Grants Manager at HealthRIGHT360
Dr. Rebecca Straple-Sovers, Marketing Specialist at Medieval Institute Publications

Click here to register.

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Medieval Religion: its topicality, methods and sources

Posted on March 6, 2023 by Chris

Medieval Religion: its topicality, methods and sources
Summer School June June 22^nd-June 27^th(Thursday-Saturday; Monday-Tuesday)

Description:

In society today, medieval religion is omnipresent. This is not only true in European city- and village-scapes, where medieval churches are still dominant features, but also in popular media such as games and television as well as in politics, where the Middle Ages are invoked either as the epitome of backwardness and cruelty, or as the golden age of white supremacy, true spirituality, and selfless heroism (to name but a few of the widely diverse images that the phrase ‘Middle Ages’ gives rise to). In the summer school students will be challenged by specialists in the field of medieval religion to position and develop their own research in relevant scholarly and cultural contexts. The instructors will give masterclasses from their own specialties (e.g. intellectual history, heretical and reform movements, interreligious relations, liturgy, gender and diversity). Groningen is an eminent place for a school on medieval religion, not only because of the unique expertise of the staff, added to with lecturers from the USA (funded by Fulbright) and Nijmegen, but also because its land- and cityscapes offer a clear example of the presence of the Middle Ages.

The school will be offered on site and hybridly.

Learning aims:

After this summer school:

Students can situate medievalist research, especially their own, in current scholarly, societal and cultural debates.
Students can critically reflect on the uses of contemporary theories of religion to the study of the Middle Ages and, if helpful, apply these creatively in their medievalist research.
Students can critically reflect on the contemporary relevance and topicality of medieval studies.
At an advanced level, students get to be trained in the setting up of medievalist research projects and the study of sources, with an eye to publication and acquiring funding.
Students can assess sources and literature in the interest of their own projects as shown in a presentation and a reflection paper.

Target groups:

Graduate Students .e.g. Master and Research Master students
Postgraduate students e.g. PhD students and postdocs.

ECTS:
5 ECTS.

Assessment:

Participation
Presentation on the last day on how to use the material of the summer school in one’s research
Reflection paper on how to use the material of the summer school in one’s research. 1500 words max.

Academic coordinator:

Dr. Mathilde van Dijk, Faculty of Theology and Religious Studies, Oude Boteringestraat 38, 9712 GK Groningen, mathilde.van.dijk@rug.nl.

Register at:

Medieval Religion | University of Groningen Summer Schools (rug.nl) April 1^st at the latest; confirmation of your acceptance will follow before April 15^th.

Image: Our Sweet Lady Star of the sea in Maastricht, 15^th century statue, still a major target for pilgrimage today, source Maria – Gereformeerde Kerk PKN Lunteren (gklunteren.nl)

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MAA News – From the Executive Director: 2023 Annual Meeting

Posted on March 3, 2023 by Chris

Publication Prizewinners with President Maureen Miller

What a joy it was to gather in Washington, DC last week with more than 500 friends and colleagues! This year’s Annual Meeting was remarkable in so many ways: the number of attendees, the breadth of programming, the demographic and professional diversity of the presenters, and the noteworthy field trips to DC-area collections. The gathering included visits to Dumbarton Oaks and the Textile Museum, a textile workshop at The Avenir Center, the inaugural day-long Digital Medieval Studies Institute, and sessions at the National Gallery of Art (“Curating Global Medieval Art”) and the Library of Congress (“Fragmentology”). The closing reception was a jubilant gathering at the National Museum of Asian Art, with curators on hand to answer questions and guide us through the galleries.

The plenaries all engaged, in various ways, with issues of indigeneity and cross-cultural contact, beginning with Kiros A.B. Auld’s Land Acknowledgement that took us beyond platitudes and towards action (click here to learn more about the Indigenous Lands Project). The Land Acknowledgement can be found in the online program. President Maureen Miller’s plenary will be published in the July 2023 issue of Speculum.

Newly-inducted Fellows of the MAA with the Fellows Officers

I want to take this opportunity to thank Program Committee Chairs Jennifer Davis and Laura Morreale for their work organizing and implementing this very complex meeting, along with the Program Committee, the team of volunteers (led by Lilla Kopár, Sam Collins, and the MAA’s own Christopher Cole) and the many DC-area institutions and departments who supported this event. I would also like to thank Maureen Miller for her service as President and welcome incoming President Robin Fleming.

We look forward to seeing you at the University of Notre Dame in 2024 for the 99th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America!

– Lisa Fagin Davis, Executive Director