The Medieval Academy Blog

The Brooklyn College (CUNY) Archives & Special Collections has opened an exhibition celebrating female premodernists who taught at Brooklyn College before 1980, including medievalists (and MAA members) Elizabeth A.R. Brown, Nancy Black, and Jacqueline De Weever.

Brooklyn College Associate Professor of History Lauren Mancia and Assistant Dean for Academic Programs and Director of the Latin/Greek Institute Lucas G. Rubin, as well as twelve History and Classics students from Brooklyn College, have created an incredible exhibit that will serve as a fascinating walk back in time and will run through December 31, 2023. There is also an online version of the exhibition here: https://libguides.brooklyn.cuny.edu/magisterial-feminae.

The exhibition draws from the rich resources of the Brooklyn College Archives and Special Collections. The materials celebrate these women’s extraordinary contributions to the classroom and their discoveries and transformative insights into the study of premodernity. It also situates their achievements in the context of a mid-twentieth-century academic landscape that was always challenging, if not sometimes downright hostile, to women. The exhibit details their hardships and the battle many of these premodernists waged against sexism in the academy in the 1970s, of which the founding of the Brooklyn College Women’s Center and the Women’s Studies Program are a consequence.

There are several major threads to this exhibition that tells the story of the academic achievements of premodernist women faculty, and it demonstrates how their specific training equipped them with an array of skills that were transformative, in and out of the classrooms of Brooklyn College. Other major Brooklyn College institutions will also be highlighted, including the legacy of the Latin/Greek Institute (LGI), celebrating its fiftieth anniversary this year. Since it was founded in 1973, the LGI has graduated almost 3,000 students, including many medievalists.

“When we began doing the research for this exhibition, we thought we were simply going to tell the stories of these female professors, their academic achievements, and their legacy. We thought we were merely going to celebrate the 50^th anniversary of the Latin/Greek Institute,” Mancia said. “But one of the most surprising and timely things we’ve found in our archival research is how these women time and time again reached for the humanities, and the premodern, at times of crisis in Brooklyn College’s history. After World War II, after the NYC budget crises of the 1970s, and after the enrollment crises resulting from the transformations in CUNY’s admissions and tuition policies in the late 1970s, these women saw the humanities as the means for Brooklyn College’s—and higher education’s—revitalization and survival through hard times.”

The exhibit helps highlight the work of Brooklyn College’s Late-Antique-Medieval-Early-Modern (LAMEM) working group of 23 different faculty members from eight different departments and programs around the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (Art, Classics, English, History, Judaic Studies, Modern Languages and Literatures, Philosophy, and Religion). LAMEM celebrates its 10^th year in 2023 and is co-convened by medievalists Lauren Mancia (History) and Karl Steel (English) in 2022-23, and Nicola Masciandaro (English) in 2023-2024.

The exhibit opened on May 2^nd, 2023, and medievalists Elizabeth A.R. Brown, Jacqueline De Weever, and Nancy Black were in attendance. Medievalists Sara McDougall (John Jay/Graduate Center CUNY), Nancy Regalado (NYU) and Marianne Kowaleski (Fordham) were also there. Photos of the opening are below.

Visitors without a CUNY ID can show government-issued IDs at any of the campus entrances and enter the Brooklyn College Library to visit the exhibit during normal hours. Anyone interested in arranging a special tour of the exhibit for a class or group before the closing in December can contact Lauren Mancia at laurenmancia@brooklyn.cuny.edu.

The Institute is an independent private institution founded in 1930 to create a community of scholars focused on intellectual inquiry, free from teaching and other university obligations. Scholars from around the world come to the Institute to pursue their research. Candidates of any nationality may apply for a single term or a full academic year. Scholars may apply for a stipend, but those with sabbatical funding, other grants, retirement funding, or other means are also invited to apply for a non-stipendiary membership. Open to all fields of historical research, the School of Historical Studies’ principal interests is the history of western, near eastern and Asian civilizations, with particular emphasis on Greek and Roman civilization, the history of Europe (medieval, early modern, and modern), the Islamic world, East Asian studies, art history, the history of science, and late modern history. Support is available each year for one scholar in music studies. A Ph.D. (or equivalent) and influential publications are required.

Rare Book School at the University of Virginia is pleased to offer a new course this summer that may be of interest to MAA members: “Using Digitized Manuscripts” taught by Dot Porter. Over the past 20 years, the number of medieval and renaissance manuscripts that have been digitized has expanded dramatically. What opportunities does this widespread digitization make possible? In this class, students will learn about the process of digitization, focusing on photography and touching on other methods for making manuscripts available through digitization. We will learn and experiment with various tools for working with digitized manuscripts. Finally, we will discuss both the promise and the limitations of digitization.

Over the course of the week, students will have the opportunity to apply new knowledge to a digitized manuscript of their choice and share their progress and results with the class. The course will combine lectures, tours, readings, hands-on project development, and group discussion.

Students should come to class with a digitized manuscript they wish to work with and should have access to images and a description of the manuscript. Applicants’ personal statements should include a description of the manuscript and a discussion of what kind of project they are interested in undertaking with the manuscript.

This course will run 24-28 July. If you would like additional information or are interested in applying, please visit: https://rarebookschool.org/courses/manuscripts/m105v/

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for a Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at the 7th Forum Medieval Art/Forum Kunst des Mittelalters, Jena, September 25–28, 2024. The biannual colloquium is organized by the Deutsche Verein für Kunstwissenschaft e.V.

The theme for the 7th Forum Medieval Art is Light: Art, Metaphysics and Science in the Middle Ages.

The Mary Jaharis Center invites session proposals that fit within the Light theme and are relevant to Byzantine studies.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is May 29, 2023.

If the proposed session is approved, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 4 session participants (presenters and session chair) up to $500 maximum for participants traveling from locations in Germany, up to $800 maximum for participants traveling from the EU, and up to $1400 maximum for participants traveling from outside Europe. 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. The Mary Jaharis Center regrets that it cannot reimburse participants who have last-minute cancellations and are unable to attend the conference.

For a complete description of the theme, further details, and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/7th-forum-medieval-art.

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