The Medieval Academy Blog

The 2025 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America
Harvard University, Cambridge MA
20-22 March 2025

The Centennial Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will take place on the campus of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hosted by Harvard University, Boston College, Boston University, Brandeis University, Fitchburg State University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stonehill College, Tufts University, and Wellesley College. While the conference will take place in person, the plenary lectures and some other events also will be live streamed. Plenary addresses will be delivered by Kristina Richardson (Professor of History and Middle Eastern and South Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Virginia), Sara Lipton (Incoming President of the Medieval Academy of America and Professor of History, Stony Brook University), and Wendy Belcher (Professor of Comparative Literature and African American Studies, Princeton University). The Annual Meeting will be followed by the Sunday annual meeting of the Medieval Academy’s Committee on Centers and Regional Associations (CARA).

The conference sessions, receptions, and pre-conference programs will take place at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Harvard campus is accessible by taxi and public transit from Boston’s Logan Airport as well as from the South and Back Bay Amtrak stations. In addition to Harvard’s own museums and libraries, visitors can take advantage of greater Boston’s rich dining, entertainment, and cultural resources, including the Museum of Fine Arts, the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, and the Boston Public Library, all easily reached by the MBTA subway from Harvard Square.

Click here for additional information and the full Call for Papers

With the retirement of Editor Katherine Jansen forthcoming in 2025, the Medieval Academy of America seeks to appoint an Editor, or co-Editors, for Speculum.

The position is configured as part-time, requiring between 20 and 30 hours per week, with some seasonal variation. The Editor is appointed for a five-year term, subject to acceptable yearly performance reviews, with the possibility of a second five-year term by mutual agreement. The Editor should be an established scholar with academic credentials in some field(s) of medieval studies, broadly defined, with demonstrated organizational and decision-making skills. Experience in journal, book, or series editing will be helpful but not necessary. The term of appointment begins in January of 2025. Terms and conditions are to be negotiated. Please note: the MAA does not offer remuneration for this position, aside from a summer stipend if the Editor is a faculty member, although the MAA may be able to continue offering support for otherwise staffing the journal (currently a Managing Editor and Associate Editor). It is understood that the Editor will negotiate terms of support with a host institution and these terms should be explicitly described as part of the application dossier. Interested parties should plan to attend an online information session in late May; details will be announced soon.

Follow these links for the full announcement and job description.

Announcement: https://www.themedievalacademyblog.org/editor-of-speculum-call-for-applications/

Job Description and Application Portal: https://www.medievalacademy.org/general/custom.asp?page=EdJobDescription

Questions should be addressed to EditorSearch@TheMedievalAcademy.org

We are very pleased to invite anyone interested in submitting a proposal to serve as the next Editor of Speculum to sign up for a private 30-minute informational meeting with President Sara Lipton, Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis, and other members of the Search Committee. We will provide some background on the history of the Editor position and the complex series of agreements and MOUs governing our relationship with the Catholic University of America (the home of our current editor Katherine Jansen) and our publisher (the University of Chicago Press), as well as lay out the financial parameters of the position and explain the current compensatory model for the Editor and Speculum staff. We would like to note that there is some flexibility in how MAA funds designated for the support of Speculum may be allocated, though the total amount of those funds is fixed according to the MAA budget.

Informational meetings may be scheduled for Tuesday, 14 May between 3 and 5 PM; or for Wednesday, 15 May between 10:30 AM and 12:30 PM (all times US Eastern).

We invite all who are seriously considering submitting a proposal to sign up for a timeslot using the link below (names will not be visible to others):

https://www.signupgenius.com/go/10C0B4BA4A92AABFBC70-49063568-speculum

We will send the Zoom link for participants in the coming weeks.

We look forward to meeting with all prospective applicants soon. If you are unable to schedule a meeting for either 14 or 15 May, please email the Search Committee <EditorSearch@themedievalacademy.org> and we will work with you to schedule another time to meet.

Sara Lipton, President and Search Committee Chair

Are you planning an exhibit, symposium, performance, workshop, or other event in 2025, our Centennial year? Apply for a Centennial Grant!

In celebration of its upcoming 2025 Centennial, the Medieval Academy of America is pleased to announce a second round of funding for Centennial Grants of up to $5,000 each supporting the planning and implementation of local events and projects celebrating and promoting medieval studies in education and the arts. For performances and lectures, the event must be scheduled for 2025. Educational resources must be open access and meet the MAA’s Standards for Web Publication. Eight projects were funded in the first round and are described here. Applications for the second round (for which up to eight awards will be granted) must be submitted by 30 June 2024.

Click here for more information and to apply!