The Medieval Academy Blog

The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) is extending the call for applications to the 2024-2025 Visiting Research Fellowship program. Applications are now due June 7th, 2024. 

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.

Fellowships are open to scholars living outside of the greater Philadelphia area whose research would benefit from direct access to our collections and staff expertise in manuscript studies and the digital humanities. Applicants must have completed a Ph.D. or an equivalent professional degree by the time the fellowship begins. The fellowship offers $5000 to spend 1 month (minimum of 4 work weeks) at SIMS between July 1, 2024, and June 30, 2025. Up to 3 fellowships will be awarded this year. For more information and to apply, please visit https://schoenberginstitute.org/visiting-research-fellowships.

Applications are now due Monday, June 7th, 2024.

Feel free to contact Lynn Ransom, Curator of Programs, at lransom@upenn.edu with any questions and to circulate this announcement widely.

Call for Applications: 2025-26 Membership 

The Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) is an independent, private institution founded in 1930 to create a community of scholars focused on intellectual inquiry, free from teaching and other university obligations. Each year scholars from around the world apply to pursue their own research at the Institute. Members receive access to the extensive resources of the Institute, including offices, libraries, subsidized dining and housing facilities, and some administrative assistance.

The School of Historical Studies supports scholarship in all fields of historical research but is concerned principally with the history of western, near eastern and Asian civilizations, with particular emphasis upon the Greek and Roman world, the history of Europe (medieval, early modern, and modern), the Islamic world, East Asian studies, art history, history of science, and musicology.

Application Deadline: October 15, 2024

Dates of Membership:
Term I: September 22 – December 19, 2025         Term II: January 12 – April 10, 2026

Eligibility Requirements: 

• Applicants must hold a Ph.D. or equivalent, awarded no later than December 31, 2023.
• Scholars are expected to reside at the Institute for Advanced Study or in the Princeton area during the term(s) of their Membership.

Application Requirements 

• A completed online application
• Curriculum vitae
• Research proposal (maximum 1,500 words)
• One-page bibliography related to your proposal
• PDF files of three publications, in print, from peer-reviewed sources
• Two reference letters (only required for applicants who received their Ph.D. in the last five years)

Funding Information and More: 

The School of Historical Studies generally offers stipends of a maximum of $80,000 for the full academic year, and $40,000 for a single term. The Institute will also provide a limited reimbursement for travel expenses to incoming Members from outside the Princeton area.

Scholars who have received their Ph.D. no earlier than January 2018 and are currently Assistant Professors at a college or university in the U.S. or Canada may also simultaneously apply online to the Mellon Fellowship for Assistant Professors.

Short-term Visitorships for less than a full term and no stipend are also available ad-hoc. To inquire about a Visitorship opportunity, contact the Administrative Officer at  HSao@ias.edu.

Visit ias.edu/hs/membership for more information.  For all other inquiries, email hsappquery@ias.edu.

Gender, Identity, and Authority in Late Antiquity

March 20-23, 2025

The Society for Late Antiquity is pleased to announce the sixteenth biennial meeting of Shifting Frontiers in Late Antiquity, which will be held at The University of Tulsa, in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We encourage papers that investigate issues and aspects of gender, identity, and/or authority within the broader late antique world, either in relation to one another or on their own. This thematic scope is intentionally broad, allowing for many different approaches and from a host of disciplines and methodologies. Gender, for example, might include the impact of religion or other factors on ideas of the family, sex, and sexuality, understandings of the nature of gender differences, or conceptions of identity and authority in relationship to the gendered or genderless self or other. Likewise, identity might focus on its self-perception or ascription by others, its potential to be malleable, situational, or contested, or its various components, like ethnicity, political allegiance, religious affiliation, or class. Finally, authority might interrogate its attribution to or expectation for a particular person (e.g., an empress or saint), place (e.g., Rome), or thing (e.g., a text or creed), the mechanisms for its attainment or rejection, such as tradition, merit, or force, or its realization of lack thereof, either as an actual fact or ideal.

Abstracts (no more than 500 words) for papers presenting original scholarship should be submitted for consideration no later than October 1, 2024.

Conference website: https://sites.utulsa.edu/shiftingfrontiersxvi/

Conference email: shiftingfrontiersxvi@gmail.com