At its 14th Triennial Congress held in Munich in September 2023, the Association internationale d’études occitanes (AIEO) elected Wendy Pfeffer a membre honoraire, recognizing her work to advance Occitan studies in North America and her work on behalf of the AIEO. Prof. Pfeffer thanks the Medieval Academy again for granting her travel funding which allowed her to attend the Congress.
If you have good news to share, please send it to Executive Director Lisa Fagin Davis.
The Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL) Fellowship
Supported by a Generous Grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities.
The Society for Classical Studies invites applications for a one-year Fellowship, tenable from July 2024 through June 2025, that will allow an American scholar to conduct lexicographical research at the Thesaurus Linguae Latinae (TLL) Institute in Munich. Fellows at the TLL develop a broadened perspective of the range and complexity of the Latin language and culture from the classical period through the early Middle Ages, contribute signed articles to the Thesaurus, have the opportunity to participate in a collaborative international research project in a collegial environment, and work with senior scholars in the field of Latin lexicography.
The Fellowship carries a stipend in the amount of $60,000, and is made possible by a grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. Before leaving for Munich, fellows receive up to $1,850 in additional funds to support training in Latin lexicography and (if necessary) German. Thanks to the Friends of George Goold Fund in the SCS’s Endowment for Classics Research and Teaching, Fellows may also request reimbursement of travel expenses for two return trips between North America and Munich, to enable the Fellow to take up the fellowship and to attend the annual SCS meeting. In certain instances the TLL Fellowship Advisory Board may also authorize Goold Fund support for other research activities of a Fellow. The incumbent Fellow may re-apply for a second year, but all applications will be judged on an equal footing.
Applications must be received by the deadline of Friday, December 1, 2023, at 11:59p.m., Eastern Time.
For more information about the TLL Fellowship, and for complete eligibility and application guidelines, please visit: https://classicalstudies.org/awards-and-fellowships/thesaurus-linguae-latinae-tll-fellowship
University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana
March 14–16, 2024
The 99th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will take place in South Bend, Indiana, on the campus of the University of Notre Dame. The meeting is hosted by Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute, St. Mary’s College, Holy Cross College, and Indiana University, South Bend. The conference will be entirely in person, though the plenary lectures and some other events will also be live-streamed.
The themes for this year’s meeting are “Mapping the Middle Ages,” “Bodies in Motion,” and “Communities of Knowledge.” Plenary addresses will be delivered by MAA President Robin Fleming (Boston College), Bissera Pentcheva (Stanford), and Jack Tannous (Princeton).
Sixty concurrent sessions will represent a range of threads, including “Digitally Mapping the Middle Ages,” “Sacred Interiors,” “Islamic Epistemology,” “Mapping Real and Imaginary Travel,” “Mobile Bodies,” and “Border Crossings,” and cover topics addressing material culture, literary studies, cosmology, architecture, liturgy, and pandemics, to name a few. Roundtables and workshops will highlight union organizing in higher education, writing for a public audience, and publishing on the Middle Ages.
Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute has one of the preeminent library collections for medieval studies in North America. You are welcome to visit the Medieval Institute during your stay on campus. You can find it on the 7th floor of the University’s Theodore M. Hesburgh Library.
Beyond the conference and its sessions, other attractions are available to you before and during the meeting. On Wednesday, March 13, workshops on sacred chant, digital medieval studies, and fragmentology will be offered. Notre Dame Library’s Special Collections will showcase an exhibit entitled “Mapping the Middle Ages: Marking Time, Space, and Knowledge,” while the campus Digital Visualization Theater will host a 360-degree visual and aural presentation on the cosmology of Hildegard of Bingen. Visit the newly-opened Raclin Murphy Museum of Art and while there enjoy a special exhibit of early woodcuts and engravings, including Albrecht Dürer’s famous Apocalypse series. The Morris Inn will host an Irish Céilí dance on Saturday evening.
Registration will open in January. Click here for more information.
We look forward to seeing you there!
The Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture is pleased to announce the next lecture in our 2023–2024 lecture series.
Monday, November 6, 2023 | 12:00 PM EST | Zoom
Measuring Weather: The Windvane and the Nilometer in Byzantine Art and Texts
Paroma Chatterjee, University of Michigan
This lecture draws attention to the monumental scientific devices that appear in the Byzantine literary and pictorial tradition. Specifically, it focuses on the windvane (anemodoulion) that stood for centuries in Constantinople before its destruction during the Fourth Crusade (1204 CE), and the Nilometer used for measuring the rising levels of the Nile, and which is depicted in textiles, mosaics, and other media. In considering these objects, the lecture makes the case that bucolic imagery (which we find associated with the windvane and the Nilometer in its visual representations) was deemed most suitable for devices linked to measuring and signaling weather patterns. Finally, the lecture proposes that the bucolic mode was linked to these objects as its conventions articulated the contingency of the relations between humans, non-humans, and nature.
Paroma Chatterjee is Professor of Byzantine and medieval Mediterranean art history at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor.
Advance registration required at https://maryjahariscenter.org/events/lecture-by-measuring-weather
Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.
The following awards are available:
CAARI Fellowships—Parks (3,000, any nationality) Swiny (2,000, any nationality in US or Canada school) and O’Donovan (2,000, any nationality)
Edgar J. Peltenburg postdoctoral research fellowship (14,000 plus up to 1,500 travel)
Scholar in residence (50% reduction at caari)
CAARI/CAORC 2 (5500 and up to 1500 travel and up to 4k for research expenses on the island)
Further information and application instructions may be found on the CAARI website (CAARI.org, under “research”)
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 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 (http://mdr-maa.org/about/standards-for-web-publication). Applications in the first round (for which five awards will be granted) must be submitted by 15 December 2023.
Click here for more information and to apply!
If you have recently seen a major research project to completion, please let us know! The 2024 Medieval Academy meeting at the University of Notre Dame (March 14-17, 2024) will feature two sessions celebrating “New Scholarship.” The sessions will take place during the regularly scheduled MAA program and will provide an opportunity for us to learn about each other’s recent publications or other projects and to celebrate these research milestones together. If you would like to participate in this new session, in which individual members will briefly present (ca. 5-10 mins) a major publication or publicly available project, please reach out to Fiona Griffiths (fgriffit@stanford.edu) by December 15, 2023 with an expression of interest and brief description of the work. All members with recently completed major projects are warmly invited to participate. Notifications will be sent out by January 15, 2024.
Seeing Race Before Race
Now Open through December 29, 2023
Newberry Library, Chicago
The Newberry Library introduces Seeing Race Before Race, an exhibition that explores race-making in medieval and early modern Europe. Developed in collaboration with the RaceB4Race Collective, this exhibition probes how race developed as a social construct from the Middle Ages to 1800. The exhibition features maps, manuscripts, paintings, printed books, paintings, automata, and woodcuts dating from 1100 to 1800.
These material witnesses show how people categorized each other through distinctions like language, dress, class, geography, and religion—in addition to traits like skin color or facial features—long before the term “race” came into popular use in the nineteenth century. “Traditional scholarship in Europe and North America has often overlooked race as a social construct prior to the trans-Atlantic trafficking of enslaved Africans,” said Lia Markey, Director of the Center for Renaissance Studies at the Newberry Library. “Seeing Race Before Race looks at the medieval and Renaissance periods and centers the expertise of BIPOC scholars. The Newberry is uniquely positioned to spark dialog and bring this work to life in the form of an exhibition.”
The exhibition features several collection materials demonstrating race-making at work throughout the medieval period. Bibles and theological manuscripts show the presence and flexibility of racial thinking in medieval Europe; a medieval romance shows how physical features were linked to behaviors and personal character; and Crusade narratives and antisemitic woodcuts remind us of the violence of medieval race and its legacy today.
Seeing Race Before Race, presented in English and Spanish runs through Saturday, December 29 in the Newberry’s Trienens Galleries. Hours are 10am to 7pm Tuesday through Thursday and 10am to 5pm Friday and Saturday. Entrance is free of charge.
For more information about the exhibition, its related digital resources and public programs, or scheduling a tour of the exhibition, please contact Christopher Fletcher at fletcherc@newberry.org.
Terrible events take place all too often, and the Medieval Academy of America, for the most part, does not comment. We speak out only when something that has happened affects our field, our fellow medievalists, and medieval objects or medieval sites, or when scholarship in our field is being misused.
In the wake of recent and horrific attacks on Israeli civilians by Hamas, and the massive humanitarian crisis in Gaza, we express our deep sympathy and concern for our members in harm’s way, and for their families and loved ones. Israeli and Palestinian scholars, histories, and sites we care about are at risk and suffering. Violence, oppression, fear, killing, and abduction of civilians are antithetical to the values of the Medieval Academy, and to ethical human interaction, as is the collective punishment of civilians.
As scholars of the past we bring a deep respect for the complexity of the situation and the underlying politics. But we also bring an utter compassion for the suffering of all victims, with which we try to infuse our scholarly work.
– The Officers of the Medieval Academy of America and the MAA Advocacy Committee
Officers:
Robin Fleming (President)
Sara Lipton (1st Vice-President)
Peggy McCracken (2nd Vice-President)
The Advocacy Committee:
https://www.medievalacademy.org/page/AdvocacyCommittee
Assistant Professor of English (Medieval Literature)
The Department of English at Middle Tennessee State University is seeking applicants for a full-time, tenure-track faculty position (#123400) in Medieval Literature (Old and Middle English) at the rank of assistant professor. The start date for this position is August 1, 2024.
The successful candidate is expected to teach general education courses in composition and literature, undergraduate courses in medieval British Literature, and graduate courses in Old and Middle English and other medieval topics. Research specialization may be in either period.
To see the full listing, go to: https://joblist.mla.org/job-details/8055/assistant-professor-of-english-medieval-literature-/?kw=middle+tennessee+state#top-pagination.
