The Medieval Academy Blog

The Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA, are pleased to invite abstracts for the next Studying East of Byzantium workshop: Studying East of Byzantium IX: Networks.

A three-part workshop that intends to bring together doctoral students and very recent PhDs studying the Christian East to reflect on how to reflect on the usefulness of networks in studying the Christian East, to share methodologies, and to discuss their research with workshop respondents, Zara Pogossian, University of Florence, and Joel Walker, University of Washington. The workshop will meet on November 18, 2022, February 17, 2023, and June 12–13, 2023, on Zoom. The timing of the workshop meetings will be determined when the participant list is finalized.

We invite all graduate students and recent PhDs working in the Christian East whose work considers, or hopes to consider, the theme of networks (microregional, regional, transregional, global, etc.) in their own research to apply.

Participation is limited to 10 students. The full workshop description is available on the East of Byzantium website (https://eastofbyzantium.org/upcoming-events/). Those interested in attending should submit a C.V. and 200-word abstract through the East of Byzantium website no later than September 19, 2022.

For questions, please contact East of Byzantium organizers, Christina Maranci, Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies, Harvard University, and Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture at contact@eastofbyzantium.org.

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 at Hellenic College Holy Cross in Brookline, MA. It explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine Empire in the late antique and medieval periods.

Members of the MAA, please join us with the #sschat on Twitter on Monday, 8/15, at 7pm ET. Co-chair of our MAA K-12 Committee, Elizabeth Keohane-Burbridge, will be hosting the chat and you are more than welcome to join in and learn more about K-12 teaching of the global Middle Ages and also offer your own thoughts and insights.Over the hour, Dr. Keohane-Burbridge will ask six open-ended questions that we hope will better help the teaching and learning of the global Middle Ages. To participate, simply search for the hashtag #sschat on Twitter and make sure that your answers and comments include #sschat as well as the question number that you are answering. In preparation, you can review previous #sschat conversations on Twitter to become comfortable with the format.

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 2023 International Medieval Congress, University of Leeds, July 3–6, 2023. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.

The thematic strand for the 2023 IMC is “Networks and Entanglements.” See the IMC Call for Papers (https://www.imc.leeds.ac.uk/imc-2023/) for additional information about the theme and suggested areas of discussion.

Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website (https://maryjahariscenter.org/sponsored-sessions/imc-2023). The deadline for submission is September 6, 2022. Proposals should include title, 100-word session abstract, session moderator and academic affiliation, information about the three papers to be presented in the session, for each paper: name of presenter and academic affiliation, proposed paper title, and 100-word abstract, and organizer’s CV

The session organizer may act as the moderator or present a paper. Participants may only present papers in one session.

Applicants will be contacted by mid-September about the status of their proposal.

If the proposed session is approved, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 4 session participants (presenters and moderator) up to $800 maximum for European residents and up to $1400 maximum for those coming 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. For scholars participating remotely, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse participants for conference registration.

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

Transcription Challenge Framework (TCF)

CALL FOR PROJECTS
Research Cycle 2023-2024

Do you have a relatively brief but problematic medieval source or text that exists in multiple copies, but has never received the kind of scholarly attention it warrants? Are you interested in examining and discussing your chosen source with a team of highly motivated researchers, who will work for a short but intense period to render versions of your source in machine-readable format? Would you like to learn how to use and apply collaborative digital methodologies in our increasingly virtual scholarly environment?

The newly-established Transcription Challenge Framework (TCF), a scholar-run initiative supported by FromThePage and Stanford University Libraries, is accepting proposals to host individual Transcription Challenges for its 2023-2024 TCF research-cycle season. The most appropriate texts for a Transcription Challenge are relatively short, totalling between 1200 and 2000 lines. Thus, a short book, or a book section from a longer treatise, are ideal candidates to submit to the Transcription Challenge.

For every Challenge, multiple 10-person transcriber teams, led by two captains each, will devote their time and expertise over a two-week period to transcribe one copy of a text or source, in competition with other teams participating in the Challenge at the same moment. At the end of the Challenge session, several versions of the same source, rendered in machine-readable format, will be produced to very high editorial standards, ready for future scholarly use, and will be sent to a panel of subject-area specialist who will judge all the submissions according to the speed, accuracy, and collaborative nature of the transcription effort. Judges will announce a winning submission from among the participating teams.

Two challenges are anticipated, scheduled between January and October 2023. Scholars whose proposals are accepted will benefit from the experience gained in past transcription events, have access to digital space to support the Challenge while it is ongoing, and a platform to house and publicize the scholarly output created before, during and after the two-week Challenge period.

Past transcription events have proved wildly popular and productive for former participants, and have provided training and real outcomes within the new research environment. For more information on the Transcription Challenge Framework, its history, goals, and outcomes, please see the TCF Website.

To apply, please submit the following by October 1, 2022.

1. A 200-word abstract of the project that includes the chosen source and an explanation of why scholars would benefit from a transcription of its multiple copies;
2. A list of digitized copies of the manuscript, preferably in IIIF format (feel free to inquire if this format is unfamiliar to you);
3. A statement of who will act as Challenge Coordinator with contact information (email address, phone number, institutional affiliation if applicable), and a provisional list of who might serve as team captains;
4. All projects that are based on a campus or institution should include, when possible, the name of an affiliated Digital Humanities specialist (usually located in a library or Digital Humanities or Digital Scholarship center) who should be informed of the project as it progresses;
5. A preliminary bibliography of the source in question (5-10 items).

Submissions should be sent by 12 midnight EST on October 1, 2022 to the TCF Advisory Board TCFramework@gmail.com