The Medieval Academy Blog

We are very pleased to announce the inaugural Fellows Research Awards. Supported entirely by donations from the Fellows of the Medieval Academy of America, the Fellows Fund will support two annual awards for members of the Medieval Academy who do not have access to research funding. Two awards of $5,000 will be granted annually 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. Applicants must be members of the Medieval Academy of America by Sept. 15 of the year in which they apply.

To apply for a Fellows Research Award, submit the application form and attachment by October 1, 2023. Awards will be announced at the 2024 Medieval Academy annual meeting. Click here for more information and to apply.

The Medieval Academy of America invites applications for the following grants. Please note that applicants must be members in good standing as of September 15 in order to be eligible for Medieval Academy awards.

Schallek Fellowship
The Schallek Fellowship provides a one-year grant of $30,000 to support Ph.D. dissertation research in any relevant discipline dealing with late-medieval Britain (ca. 1350-1500). (Deadline 15 October 2023)

Travel Grants
The Medieval Academy provides travel grants to help Academy members who hold doctorates but are not in full-time faculty positions, or are contingent faculty without access to institutional funding, attend conferences to present their work. (Deadline 1 November 2023 for meetings to be held between 16 February and 31 August 2024)

MAA/CARA Conference Grant
The MAA/CARA Conference Grant for Regional Associations and Programs awards $1,000 to help support a regional or consortial conference taking place in 2024. (Deadline 15 October 2023)

The Medieval Academy of America invites submissions for the following prizes to be awarded at the 2024 MAA Annual Meeting. The Medieval Academy warmly encourages the nomination of publications written by scholars working beyond the tenure track as well as those written by faculty. Unless otherwise indicated, submissions are to be made by the publisher. If your project, monograph, or article is eligible, please contact your publisher and ask them to nominate your work. Submission instructions vary, but all dossiers must complete by 15 October 2023.

PLEASE NOTE: because of the ongoing MAA office closure, PDF review copies of nominated books may be submitted instead of hardcopies (PDFs should be emailed to the Executive Director). In addition, the residency restrictions limiting eligibility for some book prizes to residents of North America have been lifted.

John Nicholas Brown Prize
Awarded to a first monograph of outstanding quality in the field of medieval studies.

Article Prize in Critical Race Studies
Awarded annually to an article in the field of medieval studies that explores questions of race and the medieval world, and which is judged by the selection committee to be of outstanding quality.

Digital Humanities Prize
Awarded to an outstanding digital research project or resource in the field of medieval studies.

Van Courtlandt Elliott Prize
Awarded to a first article of outstanding quality in the field of medieval studies.

Karen Gould Prize
Awarded to a monograph of outstanding quality in medieval art history.

Monica H. Green Prize
Awarded to an exceptional project that demonstrates the value of medieval studies in our present day.

Haskins Medal
Awarded to a distinguished monograph in the field of medieval studies.

Jerome Singerman Prize
Awarded to a meritorious second monograph in the field of medieval studies.

The next meeting of the Race & Gender Working Group will take place on Friday, August 18, 2023 at 12pm-1:30pm EST.

Dr. Mohamad Ballan, Assistant Professor of History
Stony Brook University

A Discussion of his recent Speculum article “Borderland Anxieties: Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khatị̄b (d. 1374) and the Politics of Genealogy in Late Medieval Granada.”

Abstract: This article seeks to contribute to larger scholarly conversations about the construction and deployment of difference in medieval borderland societies. It examines the ways in which genealogical notions of “Arabness” [ʿurūbiyyah], which expressed Islamic identity in terms of Arab lineage, structured the process of identity formation in Nasrid Granada (1232–1492). Through a close reading of the works of the Nasrid scholar-statesman Lisān al-Dīn ibn al-Khatị̄b (d. 1374) and his intellectual-political network, the article explores how Nasrid elites incorporated “Arabness” into the articulation of a local identity rooted in ethnic cohesion, religious exclusivity, and genealogical continuity. It argues that this constituted a particular strategy of identification that sought to differentiate Nasrid Granada from its neighbors and demarcate the boundaries between al-Andalus, Christian Iberia, and the Maghrib, even as these regions came to be tied even more closely together through political, intellectual, social, and mercantile networks between the thirteenth and fifteenth centuries. The article concludes with a consideration of the “racialization of religion” and the manner in which Ibn al-Khatị̄b integrated ideas about environmental determinism and physiognomy, alongside genealogy, to represent the religious and cultural traits of the inhabitants of Granada as fixed, immutable, and heritable characteristics, the product of both lineage and environment. Through an examination of the racialized production of difference within the dynamic borderland context of late medieval Iberia, this article seeks to invite broader comparative approaches that integrate the medieval Islamic world into discussions about race, racialization, and ethnicity in the Middle Ages.

Click here for more information and to register.

Virginia Blanton (Univ. of Missouri, Kansas City) has been awarded a Fulbright Scholarship to work at the Ruusbroec Institute in Antwerp, researching English nuns who sought refuge in Catholic Flanders during the Reformation.

Congratulations! If you have good news to share, please send it to Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis.