The Medieval Academy of America’s jobs report from May 2023, coupled with the complementary data presented in the American Historical Association’s jobs report of September 2023, demonstrate well the (potential) grim future of medieval studies in the United States. But trends are not destiny. Students continue to fill our courses across all disciplines, and (at least anecdotally) public demand for premodern or premodern-adjacent fantasy content – films, tv, books – seems to be growing. Moreover, there’s a strong case to be made that knowing more both about the medieval world and how stories about that period have been deployed in modernity, are becoming increasingly necessary. The MAA has a moment to make that case with its Centennial, both in the earned media that will accrue to medieval studies with the celebration, and in the decentralized slate of activities across the country that will accompany the year-long event.
To that end, Virginia Tech (in partnership with the University of Virginia, and with support from a Centennial Grant from the Medieval Academy of America) is hosting a 2-day workshop in October 2024 to mentor colleagues so that they can do public-facing work. This can include, but is not limited too, planning events on their home campuses in support of the 2025 MAA Centennial celebration, positioning themselves to write pieces for newspapers and magazines, and working with other cultural institutions, among others.
Graduate students, early career researchers, and underemployed MedievALLists, are especially encouraged to apply but all scholars in any discipline working on the medieval world, broadly defined, are welcome.
The event will be held Thursday October 3 – Saturday October 5, 2024 on the campus of Virginia Tech (Blacksburg, VA).
DETAILS:
MENTORS:
To apply, you’ll be required to submit a current CV, as well as a statement about what proposed public-facing work you’d be interested in doing in the coming year. Applications are due no later than 11:59pm on May 1, 2024. Accepted participants will be notified on around June 1, 2024.
See more at www.publicmedieval.org. Please share widely and direct any questions to the organizer, Prof. Matthew Gabriele (gabriele@vt.edu).
The George Washington University’s Byzantine Studies Club, hosted by the Cotsen Center at the Textile Museum, invites you to join them for Silk in Byzantium. Lead researcher Jenny Lowery ‘24 and several other Byzantine Studies Club students have assembled a micro exhibit telling the story of silk in Byzantium, the first such undergraduate exhibit at the Textile Museum. This talk will explore the origins of the native Byzantine silk trade from its covert beginnings to its influence on the greater luxuries market in Constantinople and beyond.
Join online or in person Thursday May 2 at 1pm EDT, registering for either option at this link: https://museum.gwu.edu/cotsen-
Please find here the Call for
We invite applications for a remote four-session mentorship program tailored to early-career scholars, with a special focus on those affected by the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. The four sessions will take place in Fall of 2024 (September-November) and Spring of 2025 (February-April).
We encourage historians and art historians with a specialty in the medieval or early modern visual culture of East-Central Europe to apply to this program. The successful applicants should be advanced PhD candidates (within 1 year of completion of their degrees) or junior-level scholars (up to 5 years since graduation with a doctoral degree).
The deadline for applications is May 12, 2024.
Please circulate this to colleagues and students who might be interested.
Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting
March 20-22 2025
Invitation for Submissions
In March 2025, the Medieval Academy of America will hold its centennial meeting on the campus of Harvard University. This three-day conference, organized by members of Harvard’s Standing Committee on Medieval Studies and scholars from colleges and universities across the Boston area, will be preceded on Wednesday 19 March by a day-long graduate student workshop as well as the annual Digital Medieval Studies Institute (DMSI). The conference is meant not simply to celebrate the centenary of a professional organization, but to reflect on the present and future of the study of the “medieval” millennium of the human past, broadly conceived, and to welcome scholars and students working on this period who belong to professional organizations other than the Medieval Academy. We thus would be grateful if you could circulate the attached CFP to your membership, and encourage them to submit individual paper or panel proposals before 3 June 2024. The CFP and links to submission forms are available online here. Note that we expect to offer travel subventions worth $500 to as many as 100 colleagues lacking research support, whose papers are accepted or who are chosen to participate in the graduate student workshop.
Sean Gilsdorf and Eileen Sweeney, MAA 2025 Program Committee Co-chairs
Nicholas Watson, MAA 2025 Local Events Committee Chair
The Gennadius Library is organizing a workshop convened by Dr. Yusuf Ziya Karabicak, Constantine and George Macricostas Fellow 2023-2024 at the Gennadius Library, on Tuesday April 23, 2024 in Cotsen Hall from 10 am to 8pm (and online).
The workshop entitled “Orthodoxy and the Ottoman World Around It: Cultural and Intellectual Connections, 1657-1861” brings together ten scholars who focus on neglected aspects of the relationship between actors around the Orthodox Church and the Ottoman government. The focus is on the cultural and intellectual connections, material ties, everyday relations, and shared frameworks for understanding the politics that created influences which went both ways. For more information click here.
To encourage the integration of Byzantine studies within the scholarly community and medieval studies in particular, the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture seeks proposals for a Mary Jaharis Center sponsored session at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, May 8–10, 2024. We invite session proposals on any topic relevant to Byzantine studies.
Session proposals must be submitted through the Mary Jaharis Center website. The deadline for submission is May 13, 2024.
If the proposed session is approved, the Mary Jaharis Center will reimburse a maximum of 4 session participants (presenters and moderator) up to $800 maximum for scholars traveling from North America and up to $1400 maximum for those traveling from outside North America. Funding is through reimbursement only; advance funding cannot be provided.
For further details and submission instructions, please visit https://maryjahariscenter.org/
Contact Brandie Ratliff, Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture, with any questions.
Poetry has long been recognised as a key genre in Syriac literature. The metrical homily is among the earliest sites of theological exposition in the Syriac tradition. My paper will trace developments in Syriac poetry between the 9th and 13th centuries to understand how the genre evolved into a form of scholarly exchange within and across the Syriac churches. I argue that Syriac poetry often functioned as an elite means of communication. In addition to being an important vehicle for ideas, the genre opens a window onto the intellectual and cultural milieus of its authors and other educated members of their communities.
Salam Rassi is Lecturer of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at the School of Divinity, University of Edinburgh. His main area of research is Christian-Muslim interactions across theology, philosophy, and literature. Following the completion of his doctorate at the University of Oxford, he became a Mellon Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the American University of Beirut. He has also worked as a cataloguer of Syriac and Arabic manuscripts at the Hill Museum & Manuscript Library, Minnesota and was a British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at Oxford. His first book, entitled Christian Thought in the Medieval Islamicate World, was published by Oxford University Press in early 2022.
Advance registration required. Register: https://eastofbyzantium.org/
Contact Brandie Ratliff (mjcbac@hchc.edu), Director, Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture with any questions.
An East of Byzantium lecture. EAST OF BYZANTIUM is a partnership between the Mashtots Professor of Armenian Studies at Harvard University and the Mary Jaharis Center that explores the cultures of the eastern frontier of the Byzantine empire in the late antique and medieval periods.
The Byzantine Studies Lectures of the Institute of Historical Research (National Hellenic Research Foundation) continue on Monday April 22 with a hybrid lecture on:
Byzantine Medicine in Light of the Global Middle Ages: Current Trends and Future Avenues
Petros Bouras–Vallianatos National and Kapodistrian University of Athens
18:00 EET, National Hellenic Research Foundation, 48, V. Constantinou Av. 11635, Athens.
To join via Zoom please follow the link:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_8yzZ0I3jT1a96KDpwymxFg
Call for Papers: International Workshop
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