The Medieval Academy Blog

Two essays have recently been posted in our continuing series on career paths for medievalists beyond the tenure track, by Jerome Singerman (Senior Editor for Literary criticism and cultural studies, medieval and Renaissance studies, and Jewish studies at the University of Pennsylvania Press) and Susan Kramer (independent scholar and author of the 2015 monograph Sin, Interiority, and Selfhood in the Twelfth-Century West). Read their stories here.

Deadline 15 February:
Belle Da Costa Greene Award (deadline 15 February)
The Belle Da Costa Greene Award of $2,000 will be granted annually to a medievalist of color 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. Click here to make a donation in support of the Greene Award.

Olivia Remie Constable Award (deadline 15 February):
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.

MAA Dissertation Grants (deadline 15 February):
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.

Schallek Awards (deadline 15 February):
The five annual Schallek awards support graduate students conducting doctoral research in any relevant discipline dealing with late-medieval Britain (ca. 1350-1500). The $2,000 awards help defray research expenses. Click here for more information.

MAA/GSC Grant for Innovation in Community-Building and Professionalization (deadline 15 February):
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.

Applicants for these and other MAA programs must be members in good standing of the Medieval Academy. Please contact the Executive Director for more information about these and other MAA programs.

The Medieval Academy of America invites proposals for sessions at the upcoming annual meeting of the American Historical Association in New Orleans, January 6-9, 2022.

Each year the Medieval Academy co-sponsors sessions at this meeting with the AHA. This year, we aim to sponsor sessions that address an overarching theme of interest both to MAA members and broader audiences: “Medieval Perspectives on Modern Crises.” We envision a wide range of topics that might address this theme, from race and political violence to climate change and pandemic, and everything in between. Given the location of the meeting in New Orleans, we would also be interested in sponsoring sessions focused on this historic city through the lens of medieval studies or medievalism, ritual and performance traditions, and/or the multiple, overlapping colonial legacies that perdure in south Louisiana. We invite all manner of session programming, and strongly encourage MAA members to think beyond traditional paper panels. Roundtables, lightning talks, interviews, field conversations, performances, working sessions, and any other experimental and inclusive forms of knowledge-sharing you might propose will be received with enthusiasm.

We especially encourage session proposals from scholars representing a variety of identity positions and academic ranks and affiliations, including graduate students and independent scholars. We also encourage session proposals from scholars whose work features sources, geographies, and populations that are under-represented in traditional reckonings of “the medieval.”

Click here for more information.

The Medieval Academy of America is currently accepting self-nominations for vacancies opening up on the Graduate Student Committee (GSC) for the 2021-2023 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 pre-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 together graduate students through virtual communities such as the growing Graduate Student Group on the MAA website, Facebook, Twitter, the med-grad listserv, and a regular newsletter.

GSC members are asked to attend the Committee’s annual business meeting at Kalamazoo (either in person or virtually) for the duration of their term and to communicate regularly with the group via email and virtually. 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.

Interested applicants should submit the following by January 15, 2021:

– 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’s Committee on Committees (in consultation with the current GSC) and confirmed by the Council of the Medieval Academy at the (virtual) 2021 Annual Meeting hosted by Indiana University, Bloomington, 15-18 April. If you have any questions, please contact us at gsc@themedievalacademy.org.

The following MAA members have recently been awarded Fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities:

Nicola Camerlenghi (Dartmouth College), The Virtual Basilica of St. Paul in Rome (Preparation for a virtual reality experience of the Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls in Rome as it appeared in seven historical periods).

Anne D. Hedeman (University of Kansas, Lawrence), Gothic Manuscripts, 1320-1390 (Research and preparation of a co-authored book on medieval illuminated manuscripts from France during the 14th century).

Misty Schieberle (University of Kansas, Lawrence), Patriarchy, Politics, and Christine de Pizan’s Influence on English Literature, 1400-1478 (Research and writing leading to a book on the reception of French author Christine de Pizan’s writing in late medieval English Literature).

Kathryn Smith (New York University), Scripture Transformed in Later Fourteenth-Century England: The Religious, Artistic, and Social Worlds of the Welles-Ros Bible (Research and preparation of a book on the Welles-Ros Bible, an Anglo-Norman illuminated manuscript from the 1360s in England).

Congratulations! If you have good news to share, please write to Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis at LFD@TheMedievalAcademy.org.