The Medieval Academy Blog

Registration is now open for the 101st Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America. 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!

The Inclusion and Diversity Committee invites you to join us at the 2026 Annual Meeting. Take a moment before the Presidential Plenary for coffee and pastries with the IDC, Saturday, March 21 from 10-10:45am in the South College West Commons (3rd floor). We look forward to your presence and conversation!

The 102nd Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will take place on the campus of the University of Toronto, 15-17 April, 2027. The meeting is hosted by The Centre for Medieval Studies, in partnership with the Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies and the Canadian Society of Medievalists. The Annual Meeting will be held at Trinity College and St Michael’s College, two of the federated colleges in the University of Toronto college system. Scholars may wish to extend their visit and take advantage of opportunities for research at the library of the Pontifical Institute, one of the premier research libraries in Medieval Studies.

The Program Commitee welcomes innovative panels that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries or that use various disciplinary approaches to examine an individual topic. We encourage papers on Asia, Africa, the Middle East, or Eastern Europe and the networks and exchanges between East and West.

Click here for more information and to submit a proposal. Proposals must be submitted by 1 June 2026.

CARA Awards for Excellence in Teaching: Bryan Keene (Riverside City College) and Krista Twu (University of Minnesota Duluth)

CARA/Kindrick Award for Service to Medieval Studies: Sean Gilsdorf (Harvard University)

These prizes will be presented at the upcoming Annual Meeting, during the CARA Plenary Session on Friday at 10:30 AM. Please join us as we honor our colleagues for their efforts on behalf of Medieval Studies.

The 2026 Inclusivity and Diversity Travel Grant has been awarded to Ellen Siyuan Pan (CUNY, The Graduate Center), to support the presentation of her paper “Conversions on the Way: Cultural Pilgrimages in Daoist Master Changchun’s Journey to the West: To the Court of Chinggis Qan and Back” at the 2026 MAA Annual Meeting (Session 24, Friday, 2:15 PM).

The 2026 Inclusivity & Diversity Research Award has been awarded to Ariel Fein to support research in Egypt for her project, “Medieval Wood Networks.”

We congratulate both scholars on their awards and are very pleased to be able to support their work.

CARA Workshop: Creative Ways of Teaching with Medieval Manuscripts
Moderated by CARA executive board member Katherine Allen Smith
Thursday, February 19th, 3pm EST

Whether you have access to a vast archival collection or just a handful of parchment fragments, incorporating medieval manuscripts into your teaching can bring the Middle Ages to life for your students. Join us to hear about how colleagues at a variety of institutions are using manuscripts in the classroom in creative ways, from teaching about the history of the book, to designing mini-exhibits, and even virtually reuniting leaves from broken manuscripts. After our three presenters share their experiences, there will be time to ask questions, compare strategies, and get some fresh teaching ideas!

Presenters:

Lisa Fagin Davis, Medieval Academy of America, and Simmons University School of Library and Information Science

Carrie Beneš, New College of Florida

Lea Frost, Vatican Film Library

Click here to register!

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Teaching Medieval Art in a Secondary School Context: A Case Study Using Chartres Cathedral
Moderated by Bradley Phillis, Assistant Professor of History, Appalachian State University
February 20th at 11:00 a.m. (ET)

Though most members of the Medieval Academy of America will never teach K-12 students directly, they will teach future teachers in their undergraduate classes. One way medievalists can support these educators is by foregrounding material that they will ultimately teach in our classes and providing them with resources that they can take with them to their own classrooms. In this webinar, Diane J. Reilly will model this work, using Chartres Cathedral to show both how high school teachers might incorporate Chartres in their classrooms and how she designed materials and instruction to support this aim.

Presenter:

Diane J. Reilly, Provost Professor of Art History, Indiana University

Click here to register!

The Medieval Academy of America invites applications for the following grants. Please note that applicants must be members in good standing in order to be eligible for Medieval Academy awards.

Belle Da Costa Greene Award

The Belle Da Costa Greene Award of $2,000 will be granted annually for research and travel. The award may be used to visit archives, attend conferences, or to facilitate writing and research. The award will be granted on the basis of the quality of the proposed project, the applicant’s budgetary needs (as expressed by a submitted budget and in the project narrative), and the estimation of the ways in which the award will facilitate the applicant’s research and contribute to the field. Special consideration will be given to graduate students, emerging junior scholars, adjunct, and unaffiliated scholars. Click here for more information. (Deadline 15 February 2026)

Olivia Remie Constable Award

Four Olivia Remie Constable Awards of $1,500 each will be granted to emerging junior faculty, adjunct or unaffiliated scholars (broadly understood: post-doctoral, pre-tenure) for research and travel. Click here for more information. (Deadline 15 February 2026)

MAA Dissertation Grants:

The nine annual Medieval Academy Dissertation Grants support advanced graduate students who are writing Ph.D. dissertations on medieval topics. The $2,000 grants help defray research expenses. Click here for more information. (Deadline 15 February 2026)

Schallek Awards

The five annual Schallek awards support graduate students conducting doctoral research in any relevant discipline dealing with late-medieval Britain (ca. 1350-1500). The $5,000 awards help defray research expenses. Click here for more information. (Deadline 15 February 2026)

MAA/GSC Grant for Innovation in Community-Building and Professionalization

The MAA/GSC Grant(s) will be awarded to an individual or graduate student group from one or more universities. The purpose of this grant is to stimulate new and innovative efforts that support pre-professionalization, encourage communication and collaboration across diverse groups of graduate students, and build communities amongst graduate student medievalists. Click here for more information. (Deadline 15 February 2026)

Please contact the Executive Director for more information about these and other MAA programs.

The MAA/CARA Summer Tuition Scholarships support graduate students and especially promising undergraduate students participating in summer courses in medieval languages or manuscript studies.* Applicants must be members of the Medieval Academy in good standing with at least one year of graduate school remaining and must demonstrate both the importance of the summer course to their program of study and their home institution’s inability to offer analogous coursework. Click here for more information. Applications must be received by April 1.

*Please note that the MAA will soon publish details about and open application portals for the 2026 Summer Skills Workshops to be run under its own auspices. These workshops are heavily subsidized and will therefore not be eligible for MAA/CARA Tuition Scholarships.

About: The Medieval Academy of America’s Mentoring Program Committee is excited to announce the 2026 MAA Summer Professionalization Workshop for PhD-track students. This program is designed to foster the development of essential skills and mentorship relationships and to improve the educational experiences of graduate students in fields that intersect with Medieval Studies. Our primary goals are to facilitate the development of successful dissertation projects, foster networking and community building, and enhance competitiveness for grants and academic positions. This year’s workshop is supported by a bequest from the estate of Walter Goffart, with the support of his wife, Roberta Frank.

Format: The 2026 workshop will be entirely virtual. We will host a series of 6-8 sessions between 13 July and 14 August. The goal of the workshop is to help participants explain their research and its significance to others. Effectively communicating one’s research is beneficial in securing grants, publishing articles, and finishing a dissertation. In the latter sessions, participants will break into two cohorts, and leaders will help each cohort develop a targeted written work related to their dissertation project: a dissertation prospectus, a grant proposal, or an introduction to an article that contextualizes the broader goals of the project. Workshop leaders will also provide guidance and tips on library and archival research, writing strategies and techniques, networking, community building, and other vital professional skills. Sonja Drimmer (Associate Professor and Graduate Program Director, Dept. of the History of Art & Architecture, UMass Amherst) and Heather Blatt (Associate Professor of English and Literature and Film Studies Program Director, Florida International University) will return as the workshop leaders this year.

Call for Student Participants:

Eligibility: We seek twelve graduate students currently enrolled in PhD programs in a Medieval Studies discipline who have completed their PhD coursework but have not yet defended their dissertations. There are no disciplinary or geographical limitations. MA students are ineligible to apply. In keeping with the MAA’s ambition to expand access to resources for people from underrepresented groups, we especially encourage applicants from communities and backgrounds that have traditionally been underrepresented or marginalized in Medieval Studies. Preference will also be given to applicants with limited access to the resources this program offers.

Funding: Participants will receive a $1,250 stipend and a complimentary one-year MAA membership.

Application: Applications are due by 1 March 2026. Use this link to apply. Applicants will be notified of decisions via email in early April 2026. For help with any questions or further information, please email maamentorshipcommittee@gmail.com.

Apply to join the MAA Graduate Student Committee!
Deadline extended to 13 February

The Medieval Academy of America is currently accepting self-nominations for vacancies opening up on the Graduate Student Committee (GSC) for the 2026- 2028 term. The GSC comprises six members appointed for a two-year term on a rotating basis. There are three openings to be filled. Self-nominations are open to all graduate students, worldwide, who are members of the MAA and have at least two years remaining in their program of study.

The GSC represents and promotes the participation of graduate student medievalists within the MAA and the broader academic community. In addition to fostering international and interdisciplinary exchange, the GSC is dedicated to providing guidance on research, teaching, publishing, professionalization, funding, and employment, as well as offering a forum for the expression of the concerns and interests of our colleagues. Our responsibilities, thus, include organizing professionalizing panels and social events annually at ICMS Kalamazoo, the MAA Annual Meeting, and IMC Leeds. We also run a successful and popular Mentorship Program that pairs graduate students with faculty to discuss any aspect of our profession such as teaching, publishing, finding a successful work/life balance, maneuvering the job market, and more. In addition, we seek to bring graduate students together virtually through spaces such as our regularly occurring professionalization webinars, our Facebook and Twitter accounts, and our seasonal newsletter.

GSC members are asked to attend the Committee’s annual business meeting at Kalamazoo (either in person or virtually) during their term and to communicate regularly with the group via email and online meetings. Ideal applicants are expected to work well both independently and as part of a team in a collaborative environment. Previous experience with organizing conference panels and social events as well as facility with social and digital media are not required, but may be a benefit. GSC members can expect to learn about the inner-workings of the MAA through collaborations with other committees and senior faculty members.

Interested applicants should submit the following by February 13, 2026:

– The Self-Nomination Form;

– A brief CV (2 pages maximum) uploaded as part of the Nomination Form;

– A recommendation letter from your faculty advisor, sent to the Executive Director of the Medieval Academy by mail or (preferably) as a PDF attachment (on letterhead with signature), to LFD@TheMedievalAcademy .org.

New members will be selected by the MAA Council (in consultation with the current GSC) at the 2026 Annual Meeting in Amherst, MA. If you have any questions, please contact us at gsc@themedievalacademy.org.