Marco Manuscript Workshop 2023 

Writing the World 
Marco Manuscript Workshop 2023 

February 3-4, 2023 
Marco Institute for Medieval & Renaissance Studies 
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville 

The eighteenth annual Marco Manuscript Workshop will take place Friday, February 3, and Saturday, February 4, 2023, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The workshop is organized by Professors Charles Sanft (History) and Roy M. Liuzza (English) and is hosted by the Marco Institute for Medieval & Renaissance Studies.

This year’s theme is, broadly, manuscripts in and of the world. We imagine two aspects to this theme. The first is manuscripts that travel: manuscripts always bear the marks of the time and place of their creation, and many remain rooted to their place of origin, but others range widely in the world as cargo, gifts, devotional or collectible objects, or simply baggage that can be left behind. How do some texts get from one place to another, and why? What evidence of their travels do they bear? The second aspect of our theme concerns texts that try to convey the world beyond their pages. How do they describe the world? How is it depicted? Where is the center? What lies at the margins? What ideas and doctrines exist in the broader world? Understandings about the size and shape of the world have changed considerably since the ancient world and vary greatly from one culture to another. How have texts adapted to new information and ideas? We invite participants to consider manuscripts that connect the reader to the world—descriptions, travelogues, maps, accounts of distant places, cosmologies, stories of other worlds—or that record or reflect encounters between people in different places. As always, we welcome presentations on any aspect of this topic, broadly imagined. We are especially interested in presentations that address these questions from a non-European perspective.

The workshop is open to scholars and students in any field who are engaged in or interested in textual editing, manuscript studies, or epigraphy. Individual 75-minute sessions will be devoted to each presentation and discussion; participants will be asked to introduce their text and its context, discuss their approach to working with their material, and exchange ideas and information with other participants. As in previous years, the workshop is intended to be more like a class than a conference; participants are encouraged to share new discoveries and unfinished work, to discuss both their successes and frustrations, to offer practical advice and theoretical insights, and to work together towards developing better professional skills for textual and codicological work. We particularly invite the presentation of works in progress, unusual problems, practical difficulties, and new or experimental models for studying or representing manuscript texts. Presenters will receive a $500 honorarium for their participation.

The deadline for applications is October 15, 2022. Applicants are asked to submit a current CV and a two-page abstract of their project to Roy M. Liuzza, preferably via email to rliuzza@utk.edu, or by mail to the Department of English, University of Tennessee, 301 McClung Tower, Knoxville, TN 37996-0430.

The workshop is also open at no cost to scholars and students who do not wish to present their own work but are interested in sharing a lively weekend of discussion and ideas about manuscript studies. Further details will be available later in the year; please visit marco.utk.edu/ms-workshop or contact the Marco Institute at marco@utk.edu for more information.

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Newberry Library’s Fellowships

The Newberry Library’s long-standing fellowship program provides outstanding scholars with the time, space, and community required to pursue innovative and ground-breaking scholarship.

In addition to the library’s collections, fellows are supported by a collegial interdisciplinary community of researchers, curators, and librarians. An array of scholarly and public programs also contributes to an engaging intellectual environment.

We invite interested individuals to apply for the Newberry’s many fellowship opportunities:

Long-Term Fellowships are available to postdoctoral scholars for continuous residence at the Newberry for periods of 4 to 9 months; the stipend is $5,000 per month. Applicants must hold a PhD by the application deadline in order to be eligible. Long-Term Fellowships are intended to support individual scholarly research and promote serious intellectual exchange through active participation in the fellowship program. The deadline for long-term fellowships is
November 1
.

Short-Term Fellowships are available to postdoctoral scholars, PhD candidates, and those who hold other terminal degrees. Short-Term Fellowships are generally awarded for 1 to 2 months; unless otherwise noted the stipend is $3,000 per month. These fellowships support individual scholarly research for those who have a specific need for the Newberry’s collection. The deadline for short-term opportunities is December 15.

Learn about eligibility requirements for our various fellowships.

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Call for applications – Visiting Researchers

The ERC Advanced Grant AGRELITA Project n° 101018777, “The reception of ancient Greece in pre-modern French literature and illustrations of manuscripts and printed books (1320-1550) : how invented memories shaped the identity of European communities”, directed by Prof. Catherine Gaullier-Bougassas (Principal Investigator), opens guest researchers residences.

The Hypotheses academic blog presents the project and its team : https://agrelita.hypotheses.org/

This call for applications is open to anyone, of French or foreign nationality, who holds a PhD in literature, art history, or history, whose work focuses on the history of books, cultural and political history, visual studies, or memory studies, wherein the competence and project are deemed to be complementary to the ones of the AGRELITA team.

These residencies indeed aim to open the reflections carried out by the team, to enhance its scientific activity through interactions with other scholars and other universities. The guest researchers will have the exceptional opportunity to contribute to a major project, to work with a dynamic team that conducts a wide range of activities at the University of Lille and within the research laboratory ALITHILA where many Medieval and Renaissance times specialists work, as well as to publish in a prestigious setting.

The AGRELITA project is based at the University of Lille. Located in the north of France, Lille is a city in the heart of Europe : 35 minutes from Brussels, 1 hour from Paris, 1 hour 20 minutes from London, 2 hours 40 minutes from Amsterdam, and 2 hours 30 minutes from Aachen. Residing in this metropolis offers the chance to discover the rich medieval heritage of Flanders and to carry out research in nearby libraries, museums, and archives, with very rich collections (Lille, Saint-Omer, Valenciennes, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Cambrai, Arras, Brussels).

Click here for more information.

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Tenth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies

CALL FOR PAPERS
Tenth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies
June 12-14, 2023
Saint Louis University
St. Louis, Missouri

The Tenth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies (June 12-14, 2023) is a convenient summer venue in North America for scholars to present papers, organize sessions, participate in roundtables, and engage in interdisciplinary discussion. The goal of the Symposium is to promote serious scholarly investigation into all topics and in all disciplines of medieval and Renaissance studies.

The plenary speakers for this year will be Uta-Renate Blumenthal, of the Catholic University of America, and Lia Markey, of the Newberry Library, Chicago.

The Symposium is held annually on the beautiful midtown St. Louis campus of Saint Louis University. On campus housing options include affordable, air-conditioned apartments as well as a more luxurious hotel. Inexpensive meal plans are also available, although there is a wealth of restaurants, bars, and cultural venues within easy walking distance of campus.

While attending the Symposium, participants are free to use the Vatican Film Library, the Rare Books Division, and the general collection at Saint Louis University’s Pius XII Memorial Library. These collections offer access to tens of thousands of medieval and early modern manuscripts on microfilm as well as strong holdings in medieval and Renaissance history, literature, languages, manuscript studies, theology, philosophy, and canon law. The Jesuit Archives & Research Center is adjacent to the university and also accessible to Symposium attendees.

The Tenth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies invites proposals for papers, complete sessions, and roundtables. Any topics regarding the scholarly investigation of the medieval and early modern world are welcome. Papers are normally twenty minutes each and sessions are scheduled for ninety minutes. Scholarly organizations are especially encouraged to sponsor proposals for complete sessions, and organizing at least two sessions in coordination with each other is highly recommended.

Submission are currently open and the dealine for all proposals is December 31, 2023. Decisions will be made by the end of January and the final program will be published in March.

For more information or to submit your proposal online go to: https://www.smrs-slu.org/.

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Latest Issue of Speculum is Now Available Online

The latest issue of Speculum is now available on the University of Chicago Press Journals website.

To access your members-only journal subscription, log in to the MAA website using your username and password associated with your membership (contact us at info@themedievalacademy.org if you have forgotten either), and choose “Speculum Online” from the “Speculum” menu. As a reminder, your MAA membership provides exclusive online access to the full run of Speculum in full text, PDF, and e-Book editions – at no additional charge.

Speculum, Volume 97, Number 4 (October 2022)

Articles

Personification and Gender Fluidity in the Psychomachia and Its Early Reception
Katharine Breen

“It Will Help Him Wonderfully”: Placebo and Meaning Responses in Early Medieval English Medicine
Rebecca Brackmann

Roman Women: Female Religious, the Papacy, and a Growing Dominican Order
Mary Harvey Doyno

Comparative Economy and Martial Corporatism: Toward an Understanding of Florentine City Leagues, 1332–92
William Caferro

Word as Bond in an Age of Division: John Eugenikos as Orator, Partisan, and Poet
Nathanael Aschenbrenner and Krystina Kubina

Book Reviews

This issue of Speculum features more than 75 book reviews, including:

Thomas N. Bisson, ed. and trans., The Chronography of Robert of Torigni. Vol. 1, The Chronicle, A.D. 1100–1186. Vol. 2, Related Historical Texts
Reviewed by Sean McGlynn

David Crook, Robin Hood: Legend and Reality
Reviewed by Peter Coss

Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry, The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe
Reviewed by Esther Liberman Cuenca

Peter Haidu, The “Philomena” of Chrétien the Jew: The Semiotics of Evil, ed. Matilda Tomaryn Bruckner
Reviewed by Irit Ruth Kleiman

M. Lindsay Kaplan, Figuring Racism in Medieval Christianity
Reviewed by Magda Teter

Verena Krebs, Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe
Reviewed by Andrew Kurt

Liz Herbert McAvoy, The Enclosed Garden and the Medieval Religious Imaginary
Reviewed by Barbara Newman

Alessandro Palazzo and Anna Rodolfi, eds., Prophecy and Prophets in the Middle Ages
Reviewed by Brian FitzGerald

Andrew Rabin, Crime and Punishment in Anglo-Saxon England
Reviewed by Benjamin A. Saltzman

Achim Timmermann, Memory and Redemption: Public Monuments and the Making of Late Medieval Landscape
Reviewed by Jana Gajdošová

MAA members also receive a 30% discount on all books and e-Books published by the University of Chicago Press, and a 20% discount on individual subscriptions. To access your discount code, log in to your MAA account, and click here. Please include this code while checking out from the University of Chicago Press website.

Sincerely,

The Medieval Academy of America

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Reminder – Call for Papers: MAA Centennial Special Issue of Speculum

The Medieval Academy of America Centennial Special Issue
to be published in Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies.
Proposals due October 15

Editors: Karla Mallette (University of Michigan)
and Roland Betancourt (University of California, Irvine)

Founded in 1925, the Medieval Academy of America has served as a gathering space for scholars of the Middle Ages to forge new directions and collaborations across disciplines and subfields. In recent decades, the purview of the medieval has expanded to take on a global perspective, broadening the remit of our organization, and urging medievalists to rethink our place–in territorial and temporal terms–in the academy. The contributions of feminism, queer theory, trans studies, critical race theory, and indigenous studies have further redefined how we approach the medieval world and its peoples. Our own positionality–in systems of gender and race identity and as scholars working in North America, a continent excluded from the “medieval” by traditional historiography–inflects our scholarship in crucial ways. These observations lead us to ask, what is the role of our institutions–departments and disciplines, professional and social organizations, the guilds of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries–in the practices of knowledge making?

To mark the Medieval Academy of America’s centennial in 2025, Speculum invites articles for a special issue that reflect on the history of Medieval Studies in North America and its institutions. In this dedicated issue, we wish to address how schools, universities, libraries, archival repositories, professional societies, amateur organizations, and other para-academic and non-academic groups have organized and constructed the limits and articulations of our knowledge. How has Medieval Studies been shaped by its institutions? How have para-academic groups subverted and modeled new ways of maneuvering around conventional spaces? How has an evolving sense of community and belonging formulated and challenged many of the methods, theories, and interventions that have redefined our understanding of the Middle Ages? In the era of social media and social distancing, how have our online platforms provided added modes of collaboration, critique, and activism that have dared to imagine new horizons for the undertaking of our work and for the audiences that our research can reach?

The editors encourage a variety of approaches, including conventional studies on medieval materials that reflect on the state of the field and historiographic essays that consider the development of methodologies, intellectual communities, or critical figures in our disciplines. All contributions, however, should be written as timely interventions in and provocations to Medieval Studies. The editors are happy to consider proposals that break with some of the more established modes of academic writing. We encourage collaboration and will be happy to consider co- or multi-authored articles, and shorter interventions in addition to long-form articles. The editors are particularly interested in works that think critically and expansively about the terms medieval, academy, and America.

Please make sure to note the scale of your proposed contribution, authors, as well as any unique requirements or ideas. All contributions will be double-blind peer reviewed. Please submit a 500-word abstract of your proposed article and a current CV to Roland Betancourt (roland.betancourt@uci.edu) and Karla Mallette (alrak@umich.edu), with the subject line, “MAA Special Issue,” no later than 15 October 2022.

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Bringing the Holy Land Home: The Crusades, Chertsey Abbey, and the Reconstruction of a Medieval Masterpiece (2023 NEMC)

Bringing the Holy Land Home: The Crusades, Chertsey Abbey, and the Reconstruction of a Medieval Masterpiece (2023 NEMC)

Sat., March 25, 2023

The 2023 NEMC (New England Medieval Consortium) conference is held in conjunction with an NEH-supported exhibition at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, MA.  The exhibition and the conference are entitled Bringing the Holy Land Home: The Crusades, Chertsey Abbey, and the Reconstruction of a Medieval Masterpiece.

The conference takes place at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester, MA.  The exhibition (Jan. 26-April 6 2023) takes place at the Cantor Art Gallery at the College of the Holy Cross.

On Saturday, March 25, 2023, a conference including the following guest speakers will take place:

Lloyd de Beer, the British Museum
Paroma Chatterjee, University of Michigan
Paul Cobb, University of Pennsylvania
Matthew Gabriele, Virginia Tech
Sarah Guerin, University of Pennsylvania
Cynthia Hahn, Hunter College and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York
Eva Hoffman, Tufts University
Richard Leson, University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Amanda Luyster, College of the Holy Cross
Suleiman Mourad, Smith College
Nicholas Paul, Fordham University
Matthew Reeve, Queen’s University
Euan Roger, National Archives, Kew
Naomi Speakman, the British Museum
Elizabeth Williams, Dumbarton Oaks

For more information about the conference, please contact Amanda Luyster at aluyster@holycross.edu.

Bringing the Holy Land Home reveals the impact that art objects manufactured far away, particularly in the Byzantine and Islamic Mediterranean, had on the medieval visual culture of  England and western Europe.  The exhibition takes as its starting point the iconic Chertsey tiles, on loan from the British Museum, including the Richard the Lionheart and Saladin combat tiles. This exhibition reframes the combat tile mosaic in light of a recent digital reconstruction completed by an international team, headed by Guest Curator Amanda Luyster. This digital reconstruction, which includes both images and lost Latin text, demonstrates not only that the theme of the entire mosaic is the Crusades, but also that its composition draws from imported Islamic and Byzantine silks, often carried home by returning Crusaders.  The Crusading rhetoric of the tiles, in which English victory is proclaimed over their foreign opponents, thereby relies on visual traditions developed and perfected by Muslim and Byzantine artists in the eastern Mediterranean.

The Chertsey tiles are displayed in dialogue with materials from the Byzantine and Islamic worlds, including ceramics, metalwork, liturgical objects, weapons, and textiles, as well as western European objects that incorporated or were impacted by imported objects. This exhibition draws from the collections of the British Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Morgan Library & Museum in New York City, the Dumbarton Oaks Collection in Washington, DC, Harvard University Art Museums, the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, and the Worcester Art Museum.  The exhibition has been awarded generous support from the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, and the ICMA (International Center of Medieval Art).  Associated research was funded by the Paul Mellon Centre for British Art.

A symposium focusing on the exhibition will take place on campus on March 25, 2023.  The symposium will be held under the auspices of the NEMC and is supported by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation and the Rev. Michael C. McFarland S.J. Center for Religion, Ethics and Culture.

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Jobs For Medievalists

The Society for Classical Studies is pleased to announce that the deadline for this year’s TLL Fellowship is approaching on October 31st. This fellowship, generously funded by the NEH, provides a $60,000 stipend for one year at the Thesausus Linguae Latinae Institute in Munich.

TLL Fellows develop a broadened perspective of the range and complexity of the Latin language and culture from the classical period through the early Middle Ages, contribute signed articles to the Thesaurus, have the opportunity to participate in a collaborative international research project in a collegial environment, and work with senior scholars in the field of Latin lexicography.

The fellowship is open to US citizens and permanent residents who have completed the PhD. It is an excellent opportunity for early-career scholars, including contingent faculty.

Full application guidelines are available at

https://classicalstudies.org/awards-and-fellowships/thesaurus-linguae-latinae-tll-fellowship

Please note that applicants must have completed all PhD requirements at the time of application.

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Excavation in the Athenian Agora Volunteer Program 2023 Summer Season

Excavation in the Athenian Agora Volunteer Program
2023 Summer Season

Deadline: December 16, 2022
The American School of Classical Studies at Athens conducts a program for volunteers wishing to participate in the archaeological excavations of the Athenian Agora during the summer. Approximately fifteen to twenty-five volunteers are chosen on the basis of academic qualifications and previous archaeological field experience. Undergraduate applications are welcome, although priority is given to graduate students preparing for professional careers in classical archaeology.

Work of the Volunteer Staff
The Volunteer Staff will participate in all aspects of the archaeological fieldwork under the supervision of a staff of field archaeologists and technical experts, all of whom have extensive field experience and advanced academic training in classical archaeology. Volunteers will be trained in the basic techniques of excavation: working with various tools; cleaning and investigating stratigraphy; delicate cleaning of artifacts in the ground; sifting of excavated earth and techniques of flotation; washing and basic conservation of pottery and other objects; clerical work involved in the keeping of excavation records, among other duties. Students will also receive training in various scientific methods and techniques. Tasks will be assigned in rotation, and volunteers are expected to participate in all of them. Room and a modest allowance for board are provided for the time volunteers are working at the excavations. Travel arrangements to and from Greece are the responsibility of each volunteer.

The Summer Season
The excavations are planned for eight weeks, June 12 to August 4. Fieldwork is in progress five days a week, Monday through Friday, from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. with a 30-minute break at midmorning, and some post-excavation duties will be from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Volunteers are expected to be on the site during these hours and to work at the excavations for a minimum of six weeks. Students from institutions on the quarter system will not be penalized and are able to come as soon as they can (preferably no later than June 19, 2023). There will also be a limited number of spaces for students wishing to come for four weeks (beginning either June 12 or July 10, 2023).

Applicants can expect to receive notification after March 3, 2023.

Click here for more information.

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East of Byzantium Online Lecture: East of Byzantium: Syriac Christianity along the Silk Roadvvb vv bv bn

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

Tuesday, October 18, 2022 | 12:00 PM EDT | Zoom
East of Byzantium: Syriac Christianity along the Silk Road
Li Tang, University of Salzburg

Li Tang will discuss the expansion of medieval Syriac Christianity in Central Asia and China and along the Silk Road.

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 for Byzantine Art and Culture that explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

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