Conferences – Embodied Preaching: Multisensorial Preaching Performances in Medieval Europe

Conference “Embodied Preaching: Multisensorial Preaching Performances in Medieval Europe”

Padua, 24-25 October 2024

Organized by Zuleika Murat, Pieter Boonstra and Micol Long

The crucial importance of preaching in medieval Europe has long been acknowledged, not only for religious culture, but also for cultural, political and social history, art history and history of material culture. An interconnected pan-European phenomenon, to be effective preaching needed to be at the same time tailored to local tastes and conventions, shaping the message to the circumstances at hand. With the term “preaching” we understand the public performance of a speech believed to be divinely inspired and meant for religious and moral education. Most importantly, medieval preaching was not the static transfer of a text from preacher to audience: rather, it was an inherently dynamic and interactive activity, involving multiple actors through time and space, communicating religious knowledge within embodied and spatialized networks. The conference will focus on the multisensorial dimension of preaching, which goes beyond the content and style of the textual sermon, to include the personal appearance of the preacher, their voice and gestures (the “embodied” dimension), the material environment in which the preaching took place (the “embedded” dimension) and the use of “special effects” (such as sounds or fire) and objects as an integral part of the performance.
The role played by the material environment in which the preaching took place has received little attention, and mostly with reference to memory (Carruthers 1998, Bolzoni 2002). It has been pointed out that some late medieval religious leaders (such as Bernardino of Siena) referred in their speeches to specific elements of the material environment in which they were preaching (for example, artworks), presumably to help keep awake the attention of the audience and to “anchor” the teaching to material elements which could be seen by individuals on a daily basis. However, much remains to be done to understand whether and to what extent the specific material environment affected the overall experience of preaching (open vs closed space, specific environments such as churches, saint’s tombs, graveyards, squares and so on). Preachers operated amidst a visual network of objects and spaces, against a background of paintings, sculptures, and other images present within the same space where they performed, giving opportunity for the sermon to connect, contrast, or compete for attention. This also raises the question to what extent preachers adapted their preaching to the particular environment and planned the setting in which the preaching had to take place.
A further element that deserves to be considered is that, as an act of communication, preaching was not a one-way interaction: the audience, through their attitude, verbal and non-verbal reactions to the preaching played an active role which affected the experience both of the individuals gathered to listen and of the preacher. Based on this, we propose to approach preaching an interactive performance where multiple actors and multiple elements played a role. For this purpose, we will approach audiences using the notion of “socio-sensory environment”, and assuming the existence of specific sensoria depending on social, cultural and geographical factors. Preaching relied on the various senses to be properly understood and make a lasting impact: the oral and aural performance of the sermon took place within a visually accessible space, with the preacher using both voice and body (gestures, facial expressions) to convey a message. From the sermon text, listeners are often invited to fully employ their senses as well and to imagine themselves present at religiously significant moments: to see the scene before their eyes, to hear what was occurring, to smell, taste, and feel, their internal or imaginary senses giving rise for meditation and devotion. Meanwhile, the experiences of pleasant or unpleasant smells or feelings of cold, heat, or discomfort can also be investigated from a sensory perspective.

With a primary focus on Western Europe from the 12th to the 15th century, this conference aims to explore preaching in an innovative and holistic way, by considering the multisensorial dimension of the transmission and reception of the word of God in whichever form, verbal or non-verbal. By emphasizing the range of activities aimed at communicating religious knowledge and devotional practice, and the multisensorial nature of such activities, this conference will explore new aspects of the multifaceted experience of medieval preaching.

This conference is organised by the ERC research project SenSArt – The Sensuous Appeal of the Holy. Sensory Agency of Sacred Art and Somatised Spiritual Experiences in Medieval Europe (12th-15th century), Grant Agreement nr. 950248, PI Zuleika Murat, Università degli Studi di Padova (https://sensartproject.eu/)

The complete programme can be downloaded at this at this link.

To attend online, you need to register here.

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Call for Papers – 20th Annual Marco Manuscript Workshop “BORDER CROSS

20th Annual Marco Manuscript Workshop: “BORDER CROSSING”
January 31–February 1, 2025
Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

The twentieth annual Marco Manuscript Workshop will take place Friday, January 31, and Saturday, February 1, 2025, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The workshop is organized by Professor Roy M. Liuzza (English) and is hosted by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

This year’s workshop explores the idea of “crossing borders,” particularly the borders between languages. We don’t always appreciate the extent to which premodern culture was multilingual – in medieval Europe, for example, Latin as a prestige language mingled with vernaculars such as English, French, Scandinavian, Irish, Welsh, and other languages. One might read in one language but speak in another, or speak in one but write in another; a household or community might have speakers of three or more languages interacting in various ways up and down the social scale. How is this multilingualism visible in surviving manuscripts? How, when, and why do manuscripts cross the boundaries between languages? Examples might include bilingual and trilingual manuscripts, macaronic texts, glosses and glossaries, evidence of script hierarchies and visual organization by language, notes and additions in different languages, translations and appropriations, and heterogeneous manuscripts compiled from different texts in different languages. What can these multilingual manuscripts tell us about how language diversity was negotiated in the premodern world? As always, we welcome presentations on any aspect of this topic, broadly imagined, or on any other aspect of manuscripts, epigraphy, and the history of writing.

The workshop is open to scholars and students in any field who are engaged in manuscript studies, textual editing, or epigraphy. Individual 75-minute sessions will be devoted to each project; 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 November 1, 2024. 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.

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SUNY Brockport Fall History Lab

The Queenship of Flanders c.1031-1083: Embodying Conquest – A Book Chat
Wednesday, October 23, 2024   4:30pm-6:00pm
Introduction by: Dr. Lois Huneycutt, University of Missouri
Presenter: Dr. Laura L. Gathagan, SUNY Cortland
Moderated by: Dr. Katherine Walter, SUNY Brockport
Description:  Laura L. Gathagan’s Embodying Conquest is an unapologetically feminist biography of the powerful eleventh-century Norman ‘conquest queen’ centered on the mountain of administrative evidence she left behind. Instead of a traditional chronological approach centered on her life cycle, Gathagan uses the organizational metaphor of Mathilda’s body to subvert the impulse to consider her relationally as daughter, wife and mother. By contrast, Embodying Conquest uses the frame of body parts, not to suggest that Mathilda was defined by her biology, but instead to show how her actions as patron, judge and ruler embodied female power in a world we typical construe as primarily masculine. Mathilda was the ruler of England, a builder of monasteries, a judge and a patron. With her mouth, she dispensed justice. With her hands, she endowed religious orders. With her crowned head, she asserted female authority. She embodied power. Embodying Conquest examines her life in full by shifting the focus from a relationally reckoned narrative to one in which Mathilda’s actions are central.
*     *     *
Laura L. Gathagan is Associate Professor of History at the State University of New York at Cortland. She received her Master’s Degree in Medieval Studies from Fordham University and her PhD in History from CUNY Graduate Center. She was the editor of The Haskins Society Journal: Studies in Medieval History from 2014-2023 and is now the Vice President for North America of the Haskins Society. She is the Series Editor, with Charles Insley (University of Manchester), of Medieval Documentary Cultures.
Dr. Gathagan has published widely on medieval women and power both in secular and monastic contexts. Her most recent works include ‘Abbess, Judge, Jailor: Authority and Imprisonment at Holy Trinity, Caen’, in the Bulletin of the John Rylands Library and ‘Mathilda of Flanders: The Innovator’ in English Consorts: Power, Influence, Dynasty: Volume I (Palgrave Macmillan) and ‘Family and Kinship in the Age of William the Conqueror’ in The Cambridge Companion to the Age of William the Conqueror.She also co-edited the forthcoming essay collection Gender, Memory and Documentary Culture, 900-1200 for Boydell Press (January 2025) with Charles Insley. Her first monograph is The Queenship of Flanders c.1031-1083: Embodying Conquest.
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Call for Papers – Medieval Joy Undergraduate Conference at Seattle University

The Medievalist Toolkit invites applications for undergraduate presenters to a conference to be held at Seattle University on April 5th, 2025. This event is paired with a public roundtable discussion at the National Nordic Museum in Seattle on April 6th, where non-academics inspired by medieval themes will discuss how they draw joy from the premodern world to create inclusive spaces in the present and future. The panelists from that event will serve as expert consultants for the conference, offering guidance for students on communicating the importance of medievalist research to a public audience.

Participating students will give a short presentation of their original research on any topic that explores the overlap between the medieval and the modern, including but not limited to:

  • Uses of medieval symbols or references in modern political discourse
  • Medieval examples that seem modern or “ahead of their time”
  • The importance of medieval precedent for modern times
  • Imaginations of the Middle Ages in modern literature, art, and media
  • The meanings of “medieval” and associated vocabularies in current usage

Help for educators:
We hope that this will offer an opportunity for college educators to integrate assignments, big or small, into their existing courses that address the use of the medieval in the modern. These can be in-class activities, weekend projects, or term papers. We are happy to consult with educators to help them tailor an assignment to their classes, and we also provide assignments that educators are welcome to use and modify to suit their needs. The outcomes of any of these assignments would be appropriate for this conference.

Travel bursaries:
We are thrilled to be able to offer a limited number of travel bursaries for participating students traveling 100 miles or more to present.

About the Medievalist Toolkit:
The Medievalist Toolkit is a public history project that aims to de-politicise uses of the medieval past and its legacy by providing public-oriented tools that encourage evidence-based discourse. Our main activity lies in building bridges between existing academic outreach, addressing misuses of the medieval past, and teachers, students (K-12 and undergraduate), journalists, and social workers who are engaging with history.

To learn more, visit http://medievalisttoolkit.org.

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Three online workshops for beginners in digital methods

Friday, 25.10.2024 (9.00–12.30h) Quo Vadis-Praxisatelier I: Einstiegsdroge Excel. Grundlagen digitaler Datenverarbeitung für Mediävist*innen

Instructor: Sebastian Gensicke (RWTH Aachen)

Further information about the workshop and registration: https://digigw.hypotheses.org/5455

Friday, 08.11.2024 (9.00–12.30h) Quo Vadis-Praxisatelier II: Wege durchs digitale Labyrinth. Mediävistisches Arbeiten mit digitalen Sammlungen

Instructor: Maria Kammerlander (Universität Freiburg)

Further information about the workshop and registration: https://digigw.hypotheses.org/5440

Friday, 22.11.2024 (9.00–12.30h) Quo Vadis-Praxisatelier III: Von A–Z. Handwritten Text Recognition (HTR) für Anfänger*innen

Instructor: Dr. Pauline Spychala (DHI Paris)

Further information about the workshop and registration: https://digigw.hypotheses.org/5425

The workshops are held as part of the Praxislabor 2024, organized by the Arbeitsgemeinschaft Digitale Geschichtswissenschaft, see https://digigw.hypotheses.org/5185

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Jobs For Medievalists

The Department of English at Skidmore College invites applications for a tenure-track Assistant Professor with specialization in medieval literature. We seek a colleague whose research and teaching feature a global approach to the study of the medieval period. Applications from scholars situated within premodern critical race studies and those who bring an intersectional and/or multidisciplinary approach to medieval studies are strongly encouraged. We welcome candidates whose scholarship and teaching convey the vitality and complexity of this time and its literature to our students.

The teaching load is 18 credits (typically five courses) per year, including one writing-intensive course each semester and regular participation in Skidmore’s First Year Experience program. All professors are expected to participate fully in the life of the college, including advising, faculty governance, and department activities. Applicants must demonstrate excellence in teaching and scholarship, as well as a strong commitment to undergraduate education at a liberal arts college. Ph.D. is expected at the time of employment.

Skidmore is a highly selective liberal arts college that fosters creative approaches to teaching and learning. With its relatively small size and student-faculty ratio, the College is a close-knit academic community. Skidmore’s faculty of teacher-scholars are devoted to the instruction and mentoring of approximately 3,000 talented undergraduates from some 47 states and 46 countries.

To ensure full consideration, applicants should submit a cover letter, cv, writing sample, and teaching statement and the names and contact information for three references by October 15, 2024.

All applications will be acknowledged; interviews will be held via video conferencing in early January. Skidmore College continually strives to foster a welcoming and inclusive environment. We are especially interested in applicants who can strengthen the diversity of our academic community, and candidates are encouraged to speak directly to this issue in their application materials.

To learn more about and apply for this position, please visit us online at: http://careers.skidmore.edu

Pay Rate: $75,000 – $85,000

Pay Ranges:

The hiring rate for the successful candidate will be determined considering the following criteria:

  • Prior relevant work or industry experience.
  • Education level to the extent education is relevant to the position.
  • Academic discipline (faculty pay ranges reflect 9-month annual salary).
  • Unique applicable skills.

 

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Call for Applications: MAA 2025 Graduate Professional Training Day (March 19 @ McMullen Museum, Boston College)

The local organizing committee of the MAA Centennial meeting invites graduate students to attend “An Introduction to Teaching in the Global Middle Ages,” a day of pre-conference professional training at Boston College’s McMullen Museum on Wednesday, March 19. This day of talks and workshops, led by Boston-area faculty, aims to support graduate students at all stages in developing an approach to teaching the Global Middle Ages. Students will emerge with a sense of the different disciplinary perspectives on both the ‘global’ and the ‘medieval’ in the context of teaching, pedagogical techniques and strategies for teaching a global medieval syllabus, and practical resources to use in the future, including a bibliography of resources and a syllabus that they have workshopped.

This training is open to any graduate student who is a member of the MAA. Those accepted to participate in this event will be expected to register for the MAA annual meeting to follow (March 20-23). In the event that more apply than we can accommodate, priority will be given to graduate students who submitted papers to the meeting that were not accepted, with the hope that students accepted for the workshop can retain funding from their institution to attend the workshop and the MAA meeting. Travel bursaries are available for those traveling from out of town.

Please submit an application at this link by October 18 (link goes to a Google Form). Successful applicants will receive more information with a formal invitation to participate by mid November.

Direct any questions to gradmedieval2025@themedievalacademy.org.

Sincerely,
The MAA Graduate Day organizing committee

Click here to apply.

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Jobs For Medievalists

The College of Arts and Humanities, University College Dublin, Ireland, is pleased to announce a generously funded Ph.D. studentship specialising in

Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE)

which will be supervised by Dr Megan Welton, Assistant Professor in Medieval History and recently appointed Ad Astra Fellow at the School of History (https://people.ucd.ie/megan.welton).

Deadline: 4 November 2024 by email to megan.welton@ucd.ie.

The studentships are open to EU and non-EU candidates and are for a maximum of four years, renewable each year, subject to satisfactory progress. The award includes full tuition fee waiver, a PhD stipend of €25,000 per annum, and €4,000 per annum towards research costs of the Ph.D.  We anticipate that the successful candidate will start in January 2025.

Please submit the following application materials by email:

  • Personal statement and CV as one document
  • Writing sample (e.g. an essay or section of MA dissertation)
  • Two academic references
  • A proposal (1000-1500 words plus indicative bibliography).

The Selection Panel will shortlist candidates for interview, likely to take place in the last week of November. Successful applicants will be informed by email.

For the application procedure please see the relevant school guidelines below. The outcome of this competition will be communicated directly to all applicants.

Specialisation: Early medieval political and/or intellectual culture (c.500-c.1000 CE)

Proposals for a Ph.D. project in the history of early medieval politics and intellectual thought are welcomed, specialising in one or more post-Roman kingdoms, including (but not limited to) east and west Francia, early English kingdoms, and northern Italy. Proposals that incorporate a comparative approach are encouraged.

In addition to a competitive stipend, the successful candidate also will have access to an annual research budget of €4,000 for archival research in relevant collections abroad or related research expenses.

The UCD School of History stands as one of Europe’s premier centers for historical research, offering a vibrant research community. The School of History is well-connected through its active engagement with international partners and a broad array of UCD research centres and institutes. The successful candidate will join a robust graduate community of early career medieval scholars, from MA students in Medieval Studies in the School of History, to postgraduates and postdoctoral fellows in connected schools in Art History, Archaeology, and Irish, Celtic Studies and Folklore.

As such, interdisciplinary work is welcomed, and candidates from all relevant areas of medieval studies are encouraged to apply.

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MAA News – Matching Campaign: We Did It!

Thanks to you, we have exceeded our two-year goal of raising $150,000 to trigger the Match, and we did it in only eighteen months! In fact, since the beginning of the Campaign in 2023, we have raised nearly $175,000.

But we aren’t done yet…

Help us raise an additional $50,000 by year’s end, an amount that will bring us to $225,000 for 2025, our Centennial year.

By making an end-of-year donation to the Campaign, you will help ensure that the MAA can continue its important support of scholars, scholarship, and expanded programming to fulfill our vision of a stronger, more inclusive Medieval Studies. Members wishing to support Speculum specifically should note that funds donated to our Endowment are used, via the annual Draw on these funds, to directly support operating expenses such as Speculum staffing. 

Click here for more information and to make a donation. Thank you for your support!

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MAA News – From the Executive Director: Celebrating 100 Years!

Dear colleagues,

As you know. the Medieval Academy will celebrate its centennial in 2025. There’s a lot to celebrate!

1) 100th Annual Meeting: The commemorations will kick off at the Annual Meeting in March, with hundreds of papers, panels, and roundtables, four plenaries, celebratory gatherings, and even a few surprises. We’ll be commemorating our history, of course, but also celebrating you: honoring your scholarship by acknowleding everyone in attendance who has ever been awarded an MAA grant, won a publication prize, been elected to the Fellows, or presented at the Annual Meeting; and acknowledging with gratitude the efforts of everyone who has ever served in our governance or on one of our committees. Join us in Cambridge, Massachusetts in March as we commemorate our past, celebrate our present, and imagine our future. The program and registration will be available in a few months.

2) Centennial Grants: Thanks to the anonymous Matching Challenge donor and your generous contributions, the Centennial Committee has awarded twenty-one grants of $5,000 each to projects across North America. Watch your email for an event near you!

Arkansas: The Plays of Hrotsvitha of Gandersheim: Bringing the Medieval to Arkansas, University of Arkansas // Two Headed Repertory

California: Summer Institute for Late Medieval Polyphony, University of California, Berkeley

Georgia: Medieval on my Mind: The Past, Present, and Future of Medieval Manuscripts in the Deep South, University of Georgia

Illinois: Cartooning the Medieval: Comics, Narrative Art, and New Audiences for Medieval Studies, Newberry Library

Illinois: Medievalists Design Games, University of Chicago

Indiana: The Bayeux Tapestry from Scratch, Indiana University

Louisiana: Medievalists of Northern Louisiana, Grambling State University

Massachusetts: Art in an Early Global World at WAM: A Digital Resource, College of the Holy Cross

Michigan: 2025 Mostly Medieval Theatre Festival “Book of Silence” Adaptation Premiere, Western Michigan University

Minnesota: Virtual Medieval Books in the Schools, University of Minnesota

New Jersey/ DC: The Middle Ages for Educators Open Access Resource (OAR) Sweet Sixteen Playoffs, Independent Scholar/Princeton University

New Mexico: The Interconnected Middle Ages, University of New Mexico

New York: Medieval Drama in Brooklyn and in Toronto, Brooklyn College/CUNY Graduate Center

North Carolina: Vagantes Conference on Medieval Studies 2025, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Duke University

Ohio: Mothers and Sisters of the Veil, Trobár Medieval, Cleveland

Oklahoma: Inaugural Manuscripts Lecture Series, Oklahoma State University

Texas: Space City Medievalism, University of Houston

Virginia: Public Medieval: A Workshop for Graduate Students, ECRs, and Underemployed Medievalists, Virginia Tech

Washington: Medieval Joy Event and Undergraduate Conference, Seattle University

Puerto Rico: Jornadas caribeñas de estudios medievales: dedicadas a la Dra. Isabel Gutierrez del Arroyo (Caribbean Conferences on Medieval Studies: In Memory of Dr. Isabel Guitierrez del Arroyo), University of Puerto Rico, Rio Piedras Campus

Ontario: York Plays 2025, University of Toronto

3) Speculum: Special issues of our journal will commemorate the MAA’s centennial (forthcoming, January 2025) and the 100th volume of Speculum (titled Speculations, to be published in January 2026). We congratulate Editor Katherine Jansen and her staff on a spectacular five-year tenure even as she looks forward to her retirement next year. We will welcome a new Editor in the summer of 2025 (more on that soon).

4) Centennial Speakers’ Series: In collaboration with CARA, the Fellows have established a Centennial lecture series that will bring senior medievalists to campuses across North America. Click here to arrange a visit to your campus or city!

5) Online programming: We will be greatly expanding our online programming in 2025 and beyond, offering author conversations, open discussion forums, podcasts, administrative workshops, skills training, and other programs. Watch your email for more information!

6) Long-term planning: As we begin our second century, we are carefully and comprehensively analyzing all MAA programs and policies in order to ensure that all of our programming and procedures are efficient, sustainable, productive, mission-driven, and in keeping with our values statement: “The Medieval Academy of America is a scholarly community committed to deepening, broadening, and sharing knowledge of the medieval past in an inclusive and equitable way.”

I look forward to celebrating with you!

– Lisa

Lisa Fagin Davis
Executive Director
LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org

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