Dear Members of the Medieval Academy:
On behalf of the members of the Search Committee and the Council, I am delighted to be able to inform you that Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G. Musto have been jointly appointed as Executive Director of the Academy and Editor of Speculum. We are delighted that they have accepted the appointment and have agreed to assume the position on 1 September 2011.
The Search Committee reviewed the applications of many excellent and worthy candidates and interviewed several of them. We were impressed by the number and the quality of the applications.
In the end we decided that Eileen and Ron could best fill the position whose description the Council approved at the last Annual Meeting. Their vision for the future of the Academy is solidly practical, challenging, and exciting, as you will soon find out. Their many contacts with Europe (and particularly with Italy) will ensure for the Academy the continuation of our ties and work with colleagues abroad.
Their experience in publishing and in electronic technology will be a great boon to our office and to our publications program. I include below short biographical sketches that Eileen and Ron have provided us, and their formal CVs will soon be available on the website. They will be joining us in Tempe for the Annual Meeting, where we hope you will be able to make their acquaintance.
Eileen and Ron have written me: “We are both highly honored and delighted by the Academy’s decision. We hope to bring our enthusiasm, experience, and dedication to scholarship and its communication to our new roles at the Medieval Academy. We look forward to working with our fellow medievalists in the years ahead to achieve the goals of the MAA and to advance its central position as one of the world’s preeminent learned societies.”
With every good wish,
Peggy (Elizabeth A.R.) Brown, President
For Rick Emmerson (co-chair of the Search Committee); Alice-Mary Talbot (First Vice-President); Maryanne Kowaleski (Second Vice-President); and the other members of the Search Committee, Herb Kessler, Susan Noakes, and Harvey Sharrer
Eileen Gardiner holds a Ph.D. in English and Medieval Studies, with a specialization in medieval literature, from Fordham University. She has taught on the university level and published several articles and books on medieval vision literature, including her Visions of Heaven and Hell Before Dante. She is the winner of an American Association of University Women Fellowship. She has worked in many aspects of the book trade since 1967, and in 1985 cofounded Italica Press (http://www.italicapress.com/) in New York City. Since 1986 she has been active in developing Italica Press’s series of electronic books in medieval studies and is the editor of The Holy Land on Disk. She is also the editor of Hell-on-Line (http://www.hell-on-line.org/), a website that comprises a comprehensive collection of visions, tours and descriptions of the infernal otherworld from various religious and cultural traditions; and The Pilgrim’s Way to St. Patrick’s Purgatory (http://www.pilgrimswaytopurgatory.org/Site/), an online project that traces for the modern pilgrim the medieval route from Dublin to Lough Derg in County Donegal. With Dr. Musto she is the co-author of the article on “The Electronic Book” in The Oxford Companion to the Book (http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Reference/?view=usa&ci=9780198606536) (2010), and with him is co-author of The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Scholars and Students, to be published by Cambridge University Press. With Dr. Musto, she has been co-director of ACLS Humanities E-Book (http://www.humanitiesebook.org/) since 1999.
Ronald G. Musto holds a Ph.D. in History from Columbia University and specializes in the Italian Trecento. He has served as an adjunct professor at Columbia University, New York University, and Duke University. He has held American Academy in Rome, NEH and Mellon Foundation fellowships and published seven books and various articles, including Apocalypse in Rome: Cola di Rienzo and the Politics of the New Age (AHA Marraro Prize, 2004); and Renaissance Society and Culture (ed., with John Monfasani). He has worked in the book trade since 1967, and in 1985 with Dr. Gardiner he cofounded Italica Press (http://www.italicapress.com/), where he has developed numerous print and electronic projects. With Dr. Gardiner he co-authored “The Electronic Book” in The Oxford Companion to the Book (http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Reference/?view=usa&ci=9780198606536) (2010) and with her is co-author of The Digital Humanities: A Primer for Scholars and Students, to be published by Cambridge University Press. He is editor of Peacedocs.com (http://www.peacedocs.com/), general editor of the five-volume Documentary History of Naples (http://www.italicapress.com/index128.html), and co-author of Medieval Naples, 400-400 (http://www.italicapress.com/index132.html). His forthcoming contributions include “Introduction: Naples in Myth and History,” in Marcia B. Hall, Artistic Centers of the Italian Renaissance: Naples (New York: Cambridge University Press); and “Cola di Rienzo,” “Rome,” and “Naples” in Oxford Bibliographies Online: Renaissance and Reformation, ed. Margaret King (New York: Oxford University Press). He is working on two other book projects: one on Giovanna I of Naples, and one on Trecento historians in the Italian South. With Dr. Gardiner, he has been co-director of ACLS Humanities E-Book (http://www.humanitiesebook.org/) since 1999.
