The Medieval Academy of America’s Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA) welcomes proposals for three sponsored sessions at next year’s ICMS, which will take place from 9-11 May 2024 on the campus of Western Michigan University. Proposals should be submitted through the ICMS’s Confex portal (https://icms.confex.com/icms/2024/cfp.cgi) no later than 15 September 2023. If you have any questions, please contact CARA’s Director of Conference Programs, Prof. Kisha Tracy (ktracy3@fitchburgstate.edu).
What’s in a Name? Advantages and Challenges of the “Medieval” Today (Session)
The word “medieval” has a variety of meanings and implications across academic and popular discourse. Does describing your work as “medieval” help or hinder you in appealing to students, engaging with colleagues, or gaining institutional support for your work? What are the implications of interpreting non-European communities as “medieval” (as “global medieval studies” implies)? If terms like “medieval” and “medieval studies” are problematic, then what alternatives might there be–and what shortcomings might they present? This session invites scholars engaging with these questions to explore how we define ourselves and our field, and discuss the value as well as the difficulties posed by terms like “medieval” today.
Building and Growing Medieval Studies: Creating Communities of Passion Beyond the Classroom (Roundtable)
During the COVID pandemic, Medieval Studies outreach and engagement became more difficult. Those challenges, however, also encouraged new efforts to inspire passion for the Middle Ages among a broader community, spearheaded by academic associations and institutes, student organizations, K-12 teachers, libraries, and museums. This roundtable invites contributors to share outreach initiatives that have worked as well as ones that didn’t connect and their advice for others who want to create interest in and excitement about medieval objects, stories, and subjects in their own communities.
Co-sponsored with the Teaching Association for Medieval Studies (TEAMS)
So, What Are You Gonna Do with That? Prospects and Possibilities for the Graduate Medievalist (Roundtable)
As the academic job market tightens and the definition of “academia” itself evolves, those pursuing and holding graduate degrees in medieval fields increasingly ask “what will I do with this?” We invite roundtable contributors to share their stories of graduate work on the Middle Ages, perspectives on how that graduate training continues to shape them, the career paths to which it has led, and how they continue defining themselves as “medievalists,” highlighting the diversity and importance of all medievalists and the critical need for collegiality and inclusion to sustain Medieval Studies as a thriving field in the coming decades.
