The Medieval Academy Blog

MAA News – From the Editor’s Desk

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Chris

I’ve just completed my first annual report as the new editor of Speculum. If you’re a glutton for punishment, you can read the whole thing under Proceedings in the July issue. But in the meantime, I’d like to share some statistics with the whole MAA membership. During my first eight months on the job we received 65 submissions, of which we accepted 5, rejected 43, and offered 10 authors a chance to revise and resubmit. As of March 1, nine articles are still under review. (Two contributors have already resubmitted their pieces, accounting for the discrepancy.) So our acceptance rate of fully reviewed submissions is only 8.6%. It’s wonderful to be so selective—but we’re very much on the lookout for first-rate articles! So please consider submitting your work.

Not all accepted articles need to be “interdisciplinary,” but they must be accessible to a wide audience of medievalists beyond your particular field. Whether you’re analyzing a manuscript or a microhistory, a poem or a panel painting, how can you appeal to readers outside of your discipline? When editorial board members vet new submissions, they are asked to use the following criteria:

• Is the article too narrow for Speculum? If so, could it be opened up?
• Is the article framed in a way to interest readers outside its own discipline, geography, and chronology? Could it be, if given useful direction?
• Does the article have a broad enough appeal for a diverse audience of Speculum readers?
• Is the research original or is it derivative?
• Does the article make a new argument?
• Does the article introduce new methodology to the field?
• Is the English prose publishable?
• Does the article have the potential to alter the conversation in its field?
• If the topic is primarily non-western, does it have a comparative dimension? Could it? Does it or could it have the capacity to speak to a broad audience?

Incidentally, articles are now being accepted for the April 2027 issue, so we’re closing in on our goal of reducing the lag time between acceptance and publication to no more than one year. Please let us hear from you!

Barbara Newman
Editor of Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies

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MAA News – Online Registration for the Annual Meeting Closes on March 10th

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Chris

Online Registration for the 101st Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America closes on March 10th. There will be a surcharge for onsite registration. The Meeting will take place on March 19–21, 2026 on the campuses of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and Amherst College, and will also include events at Mt. Holyoke College and Smith College. Hosted by the Five College Consortium, the theme of the meeting is “Consortiums and Confluences.” The program will bring together scholars from a wide range of disciplinary backgrounds addressing the medieval world and critical topics in Medieval Studies. Our plenary lectures will be given by Elly Truitt (Associate Professor of History and Sociology of Science at the University of Pennsylvania), Peggy McCracken (President of the Medieval Academy of America and Professor of French, Women’s Studies, and Comparative Literature at the University of Michigan), and Jesús Rodríguez-Velasco (Augustus R. Street Professor of Spanish & Portuguese and Comparative Literature at Yale University). We are excited to welcome you to Amherst, Massachusetts, and its environs, and look forward to meeting you, learning from you, and celebrating our shared commitment to Medieval Studies.

Click here for more information and to register!

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Call for Papers – Vassals and Lords. Christians, Muslims, and Jews in the Western Mediterranean

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Chris

CALL FOR PAPERS
INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE
VASSALS AND LORDS. CHRISTIANS, MUSLIMS, AND JEWS
IN THE WESTERN MEDITERRANEAN (13^TH-15^TH CENTURIES)

Madrid, October 26-28, 2026
Faculty of Geography and History, UNED.

Medieval history has been traditionally dominated by a monarchical and State-centric perspective. Yet the decentralized nature of medieval power demands a broader analytical framework that goes beyond the dichotomy between monarchy and nobility. This conference invites scholars to examine the intermediate tiers of authority −the complex and often negotiated relationships between lords and their vassals of different religions− in the late medieval western Mediterranean.

We welcome proposals from different disciplines (political history, history of art, literary criticism, cultural studies, diplomatics, archaeology, and others) that explore the dynamics of seigneurial power across the Iberian kingdoms −Portugal, Castile, Navarre, the Crown of Aragon and its Mediterranean territories (including those in Italy and beyond). Despite regional variations in jurisdiction and lordship, these areas share structural features that enable meaningful comparison. The conference will focus on the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, a period in which seigneurial systems reached full maturity and produced diverse forms of authority that was exercised over Christian, Jewish, and Muslim populations. The event moves beyond traditional narratives of power to foreground, through multidisciplinary approaches, the diverse lived realities of vassalage and lordship in the late medieval Mediterranean.

Submission Deadline: 30 June, 2026

For more information:
https://mutis.hypotheses.org/vassals-and-lords-conference

Versión española:
https://mutis.hypotheses.org/congreso-vasallos-y-senores

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Call for Papers – “Rethinking Innocent IV and the Crusades: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry”

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Chris

Call for Papers

“Rethinking Innocent IV and the Crusades: A Multidisciplinary Inquiry”
London, 24-26 September 2026.
Mode: Hybrid form, both in Person and Online

Overview of the Event

“Rethinking Innocent IV and the Crusades” seeks to reassess the pontificate of Innocent IV (1243–1254) through a sustained examination of his engagement with the crusading movement. Long overshadowed by the more extensively studied pontificates of his predecessors, Innocent IV nonetheless presided over a period of profound transformation in the ideology, organisation, and geographical scope of crusading. His pontificate coincided with simultaneous crises and initiatives across Europe and the Mediterranean world: from the Mongol advance in the East to the consolidation of crusading activity in the Baltic, and from renewed campaigns in the Holy Land to complex negotiations with secular rulers. Far from constituting a merely transitional phase or a simple continuation of earlier policies, Innocent IV’s pontificate offers a unique vantage point from which to examine the evolving nature of papal authority, particularly in light of the diversification of crusading theatres and the reconfiguration of legal, political, and diplomatic relationships in the dynamic context of the mid-thirteenth century.

By bringing together leading international experts from a range of disciplines – including history, theology, canon law, political thought, manuscript studies, and diplomatic history – and early-career researchers, the conference aims to illuminate the breadth and complexity of Innocent IV’s involvement in crusading enterprises from a plurality of perspectives and methodological approaches. Topics to be addressed include, but are not limited to: responses to the Mongol advance and their implications for Latin Christendom; the organisation and financing of crusades in the Baltic, the Mediterranean, and the Holy Land; the development of papal legal thought concerning infidels and jurisdiction; the role of legates and papal agents; and the interaction between papal policy and regional political dynamics in Europe and the Near East.

Through this multidisciplinary investigation, the conference also seeks to situate Innocent IV’s pontificate within broader historiographical debates on the transformation of crusading ideology, the expansion of papal jurisdiction through the negotium crucis, and the shifting boundaries of Christian and non-Christian relations in the thirteenth century. By fostering dialogue across disciplinary boundaries, the event aims to generate new methodological perspectives and to promote a more nuanced understanding of a pivotal yet comparatively understudied moment in the history of the medieval papacy and the crusades.

Conference Organisers

Collette Firestone (PhD student in History at Royal Holloway University)
Alessandro Scalone (PhD student in History at Royal Holloway University of London/Visiting Fellow at Institute of Historical Research in London)

Submission of Abstracts

We are pleased to invite proposals for 20-minute papers exploring all aspects of the relationship between the pontificate of Innocent IV and the crusading movement. We particularly welcome contributions that adopt interdisciplinary approaches, including (but not limited to) history, legal history, theology, manuscript studies, political thought and institutional history. Particular attention will be moreover giving the proposals concerning the history of heresy and heretical communities during Innocent’s pontificate, the relationship with the Mendicant Orders, with the Mongol World, the promotion and the business of the cross in Italy.

Please submit:

A title and abstract (c.300 words)
A brief academic biography

Submissions should be sent to:

Deadline: 8 June 2026

Programme
The programme will be available after selection of contributions based on the call for papers.

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2026-2027 Visiting Research Fellowships at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies

Posted on March 4, 2026 by Chris

The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) is pleased to announce that the call for applications for its 2026-2027 Visiting Research Fellowship program is now open. Guided by the vision of its founders, Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, SIMS aims to bring manuscript culture, modern technology, and people together to provide access to and understanding of our shared intellectual heritage. Part of the Penn Libraries, SIMS oversees an extensive collection of premodern manuscripts from around the world, with a special focus on the history of philosophy and science, and creates open-access digital content to support the study of its collections.

SIMS-Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures Collaborative Fellowship

In addition to our usual Visiting Research Fellowships (see below for details), we are delighted to announce a new collaborative fellowship opportunity with the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at the University of Hamburg. The SIMS-CSMC Fellowship will allow the recipient to take advantage of the expertise and manuscript resources at Penn Libraries and CSMC’s expertise in the Humanities, material analysis and/or Computer Science for manuscript research. The one-month SIMS fellowship comes with a stipend of $5000 and must take place before the CSMC fellowship. The SIMS fellowship can be scheduled anytime from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027. The CSMC fellowship offers a monthly stipend of between $2590–$4463 (depending on the number of years after the PhD) plus Hamburg-return travel costs for one to three months and can be scheduled any time from January 1, 2027, to December 31, 2027.

For more information about the SIMS-CSMC Collaborative Fellowship and to apply, visit this website. Applications are due Friday, May 1, 2026.

Visiting Research Fellowships

The Visiting Research Fellowship program offers $5000 to spend 1 month (minimum of 4 work weeks) at SIMS between July 1, 2026, and June 30, 2027. Up to 3 fellowships will be awarded. SIMS continues partnering with the American Trust for the British Library (ATBL) to offer SIMS Visiting Research Fellows the opportunity to apply to the ATBL for a further $2,500 to support research on the same project at the British Library. The ATBL fellowship will be awarded in the following year. If a SIMS fellowship is awarded, then the ATBL will reach out to the applicant and request that they apply.

For more information about the Visiting Research Fellowships and to apply, visit this website. Applications are due Friday, May 1, 2026.

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Jobs for Medievalists

Posted on February 24, 2026 by Chris

Managing Editor of SMART :

Approximately one-third to one-half of the salary for the position involving the editorship: soliciting and receiving papers and books for review; mailing out books for review to readers; mailing potential submissions to readers for review, receiving comments and sharing with authors (including back and forth correspondence relative to readers’ comments for changes to submissions); receiving completed book reviews; compiling, editing, and formatting each issue with articles and book reviews; sending final copy of each issue to the press; receiving all bound copies of the journal; mailing out bound issues to subscribers (paid by the university).
All mailing costs (solicitation mailings for subscriptions [$400], mailing copies of the journal to subscribers [$900], and mailing books sent out for review [$300]) and all supplies (paper, envelopes, toner cartridges, misc. office materials, etc. [$500]) (paid by the university).
The small SMART account that has accumulated from subscriptions over many years now totals approximately $23,000, which pays for the publication of two issues of the journal per year, or about $3,500-$4,000 (depending on the size of the issue), which is partly offset by monies from subscriptions which now total around 50, most of which are universities (or about $1,800 per year) (paid from the SMART account).
Travel to Kalamazoo to attend the Congress each year (sometimes paid by the university and at other times paid by the SMART account). For the past few years, I have not been traveling to the conference but rather soliciting papers using information from the conference program and sending invitation letters to presenters.

The person taking over will also be responsible for housing all back issues of SMART, a database of subscribers and readers, files of subscriptions and some previous correspondence, and the SMART financial account.

For more information about this opportunity, please contact Kristie Bixby, the current Managing Editor of Studies in Medieval and Renaissance Teaching (SMART), at kristie.bixby@wichita.edu.

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Opportunity for Graduate Students and ECRs: GIS Basics for Byzantinists Workshop Series

Posted on February 13, 2026 by Chris

The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture and the Byzantine Studies Association of North America are pleased to offer a a GIS basics workshop series for graduate students and early career researchers in collaboration with Becky Seifried of the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

GIS Basics for Byzantinists Workshop Series | Becky Seifried (University of Massachusetts Amherst) | Zoom | March 13 and March 20, 2026

The GIS Basics for Byzantinists workshop series will provide an introduction to the core concepts of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) through participatory sessions geared towards map creation and design. Using QGIS, a free and open-source GIS desktop software package, participants will learn how to create new research data and then transform it into an effective digital or static final map. The sessions are independent, but attending both is recommended to get the most out of the series. Participants are invited to use their own research project or idea as a basis for exploring the tool. Demo data will also be provided if needed. This workshop series is intended for those who have very little or no experience with GIS.

Each workshop is limited to 15 participants. Students enrolled in graduate programs in North America and early career researchers working in North America will be given priority. Registration is first come, first served.

Registration closes March 4, 2026.

To read a full description of the workshop series and register your interest, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/gis-basics-for-byzantinists.

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