The 98th Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will take place at the Grand Hyatt Washington in downtown Washington, DC. The meeting is jointly hosted by the Medieval Academy of America and a consortium of medievalists from DC, Northern Virginia, and Maryland.
The conference program will feature sessions highlighting innovative scholarship across the many disciplines contributing to medieval studies. The Program Committee invites proposals for papers on all topics and in all disciplines and periods of medieval studies and medievalism, including on the themes and strands proposed below. Any member of the Medieval Academy may submit a paper proposal; others may submit proposals as well but must become members in order to present papers at the meeting. Special consideration will be given to individuals whose field would not normally involve membership in the Medieval Academy. We are particularly interested in receiving submissions from those working outside of traditional academic positions, including independent scholars, emeritus or adjunct faculty, university administrators, those working in cultural heritage institutions (libraries, archives, museums, scholarly societies, or cultural research centers), editors and publishers, and other fellow medievalists. The Program Committee seeks to construct a program that fully reflects and expands the diversity of the Medieval Academy’s membership with respect to research areas and representation.
Plenary addresses will be delivered by Suzanne Conklin Akbari, Professor of Medieval Studies, Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton; Anne Dunlop, Herald Chair of Fine Arts at the University of Melbourne; and Maureen Miller, Professor of History, University of California, Berkeley, and incoming president of the Academy.
Thematic Strands:
The Program Committee envisions a conference to include the following strands:
The Programming Committee particularly invites contributions on a first strand of sessions on the topic of Internationalisms. This focus reflects the Committee’s desire to highlight the capital region as an international hub, as well as to examine critically the promises and challenges of the idea of internationalisms for medieval studies. As the capital city of the United States, Washington, DC is rich in cross-cultural expertise and is a center for many international networks in academia. With the recent turn towards the Global Middle Ages and the newfound reliance upon transnational digital exchange during the global pandemic, the hosts of MAA 2023 seek to capitalize on the region’s strengths to invite fellow medievalists to examine medieval studies in an international context and to consider the necessity of embedding medieval studies in the American academy in a globalized and decentered world. This approach also invites critical reflection on the entanglement of medieval studies in narratives of nationalism, colonialism, and racism. In sum, we seek to draw on the pluralities of international engagement that emerge from our location in Washington, DC and to engage critically with the existence of multiple centers, networks, peripheries, and dynamics that impacted the medieval world in the past and continue to shape how we study it today. Specific themes that might be addressed include:
Medieval Studies Today
Legacies of National Schools of Historiography
Disciplines, Periodizations, and Frameworks
Postcolonialisms and Decolonization
Neo-medievalism
Digital Medieval Studies
Queerness across Boundaries
Migrations and Movements
Foreign Service in the Middle Ages
Transportation and Trade
Slavery and the Slave Trade
Translation, Translators, and Multilingualism
Religious Encounters
Race and Racialization
A second strand of sessions has been proposed by the Program Committee. We particularly invite submissions addressing the following themes, which may or may not intersect with the Internationalisms themes, to include:
Cosmographies and Microcosms
“Beyond the King”: Broadening Concepts of Medieval Power and Rulership
Belief and Unbelief
Certainty and Speculation
The Five Senses
Dialogue with the Sciences of the Human Past
Archaeology, Public History, and the Conservation Sciences
Climate Histories, Archives, and Proxies
The Epidemiology and Paleogenomics of Infectious Disease
Deploying the Medieval in Fiction, Fantasy, and Games
Artisanal Epistemologies
Textiles
Expanding the Audience for Medieval Studies
Advocacy for Medieval Studies
Presenting the Middle Ages to the Public
Encouragement of Study of World Languages and Study Abroad
The third strand of sessions will emerge from the papers and sessions proposed by members of the Academy. We invite proposals on any theme in Medieval Studies from diverse chronological, geographical, methodological, and disciplinary perspectives. We also welcome innovative sessions that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries or that use various disciplinary approaches to examine an individual topic.
Special Sessions CPF: The conference will feature select sessions in collaboration with local institutions in the DC area as follows:
I. Sessions held at partner institutions:
Close Looking in the Medieval Treasury at the National Gallery of Art
Saturday, February 25, 2023
Organizers: Emily Pegues (Assistant Curator, Sculpture and Decorative Arts, National Gallery of Art) and Matthew J. Westerby (Research Associate, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art)
We welcome proposals for short overviews (5 minutes or less) to guide close looking and spark group discussion during a site visit to the National Gallery of Art’s medieval collections, centered around the Chalice of Abbot Suger. Proposed talks for conversation should engage any of the works on display in galleries G-17, G-18, and G-19. Proposals from students and researchers that focus on treasuries, treasured objects, and the re-use of objects and materials across boundaries are especially encouraged.
Manuscript Fragments and Fragmentology at the Library of Congress
Friday, February 24, 2023
Organizers: Marianna Stell (Reference Librarian, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Library of Congress) and Matthew J. Westerby (Research Associate, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art)
Moderator: Lisa Fagin Davis (Medieval Academy of America)
With the aim of identifying and reconstructing broken books, the field of Fragmentology has adopted digital tools and shared virtual workspaces. What data do we gather and what stories do we tell with this emerging field of research? How are librarians, curators, collectors, historians, musicologists, textual scholars, students, and digital humanists collaborating and producing new knowledge? How do these bits of books intersect with nationality and identity, and how do these constructs impact the scholarly work of identifying and reconstructing manuscripts? This session will be hosted onsite at the Library of Congress, and although it is not limited to any geographical scope, new research on DC-area collections of medieval manuscript fragments is especially welcome.
II. Co-organized sessions (at conference hotel):
With the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
Rethinking Global Medieval Art and Material Culture
Saturday, February 25, 2023
Organizers: The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
The concept of global medieval art has become increasingly popular in recent decades. Discussions often highlight mobility, diplomacy, and trade within specific regional spheres. How can Asian and Near Eastern perspectives be better incorporated to complicate or challenge narratives? We invite proposals for papers (15 minutes) on medieval art and material culture, particularly from the regions spanning the Mediterranean to the Pacific Ocean. Exploring non-Western medievalisms, we welcome interdisciplinary presentations which consider, complicate, or challenge the concept of medieval and which center on architecture and material culture. Proposals may consider pre-modern transcultural and transregional entanglements. Participants may, but are not required to, consider works in the collections of the Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art (asia.si.edu). Limited funding available.
With Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
Environmental Histories of Medieval Landscapes: Narratives and Methods
Organizers: Abigail Dowling, Mercer University and Thaïsa Way, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
When we look at medieval landscapes, we have the tendency to cast them in terms of “nature” and the “natural” without considering the complex interplay between competing economic, political, and social processes and the ecology, climate, and weather that created them. This panel will invite scholars to submit papers utilizing new and innovative methods to uncover the myriad layers of how action – human or environment – shaped medieval landscapes. We are thus interested in both new insights into the relationship of land and place to people and culture and in the methods, tools, and approaches used for such research on medieval landscapes including the Byzantine, Islamic and Mediterranean worlds.
With The American Council for Southern Asian Art
The Mobile “Medieval” and Its Ramifications in Southern Asia
Organizers: The Board of the American Council for Southern Asian Art
This panel invites proposals from all regions of South and Southeast Asia that 1) address the usefulness of the “Medieval” for these regions; and, as a model for all regional historiographies, 2) consider whether the grouping of centuries it denotes is relevant to Southern Asia’s own historical specificities. Papers with a transhistorical, regional perspective - rather than one based on nation-states – should probe the meanings of the Medieval in specific locations. What are the primary sources for the construction of the Southern Asian Medieval, and what are the characteristics of the resulting historiographies? Do indigenous periodizations diverge from or converge with the Medieval, a colonial-era import? Papers may also examine Medieval Studies’ global turn and its productiveness for South-Southeast Asia. Does the development of a “Global Middle Ages” make Southern Asian historical realities more legible, or does it efface specificity by imposing a universalist meaning of “global”?
In addition, the conference will feature an ask-the-editors session with the staff of Speculum, roundtables on analyzing the global pre-modern and curating global medieval material culture, panels on K-12 education, and events organized by the Academy’s Graduate Student Committee. We will also offer optional pre and post-conference excursions and are presenting the world premiere of a new drama inspired by medieval female monastic culture produced in collaboration with the Rome School of Music, Drama, and Art at Catholic University. Our closing reception will be held at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art.
Proposals:
Individuals may propose to offer a paper addressing one of the themes above, a full panel of papers and speakers for a listed theme, a full panel of papers and speakers for a session they wish to create, or a single paper not designated for a specific theme. Sessions usually consist of three 25-minute papers, and proposals should be geared to that length, although the Committee is interested in other formats as well (roundtables, poster sessions, digital experiences, etc.). The Program Committee may choose a different format for some sessions after the proposals have been reviewed.
Submissions:
The deadline for submissions is June 1, 2022. All proposals, for individual papers, sessions, or special formats, should include the following information:
● Proposer’s name (in format for the program)
● Statement of Medieval Academy membership (or statement that the individual’s specialty would not normally involve membership in the Academy)
● Professional status/affiliation, if relevant (in format for the program)
● Email address
● Postal address
● Telephone number(s)
● Paper title
● Theme for which the paper should be considered (or “general session”)
● Abstract (maximum 200 words)
● Audio-visual equipment requirements
● Accessibility requirements
If a full panel is being proposed, the above information will be required for each paper, as well as for the session as a whole. For alternative format session proposal submissions, the submission package should also include a description of the alternative format (maximum 200 words).
Proposals must be submitted as a single PDF identified by the name of the submitter:
Please e-mail all submissions to maa2023@themedievalacademy.org
Selection Procedure:
Paper and panel proposals will be assessed via blind review and evaluated for their quality, the significance of their topics, and their relevance to the conference themes. The Committee seeks to put together a diverse slate of sessions, reflecting the breadth and scope of the field. The Program Committee will evaluate proposals during the summer of 2022 and the Committee will inform all applicants of acceptance or rejection by September 1, 2022. Please note that acceptance of a paper or session does not come with any financial support for attendance at the conference.
Conference Location:
The Washington, DC Area is a major transportation hub with three area airports: Reagan National Airport, Dulles International Airport, and Thurgood Marshall/BWI International Airport. Collectively, these airports offer numerous daily non-stop flights to US and international destinations. Amtrak service is also available to Union Station (also on the metro rail line) from areas all along the East coast, while the metro rail and metrobus provide public transport within the District of Columbia and across the metro DC area. Registration and book exhibits will take place at the conference hotel. Other events are scheduled at local museums, libraries, and institutions of interest to medievalists.
Student Bursaries and Prizes:
All graduate students who are accepted to present at the Annual Meeting are eligible for a graduate student bursary and prize for the best graduate student paper. Students selected to present at the conference will receive details about how to apply for the bursaries and prize with their selection notification.
Professional Behavior:
All participants in the Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting are expected to read and adhere to our Professional Behavior Policy.
ADA Accommodations and Accessibility:
The 2023 meeting is committed to ensuring equal access to all conference events and activities, in compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990 (ADA), as amended, and Section 504 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 as well as other applicable state and local laws. Any participants requiring accommodations or concerned about accessibility are encouraged to contact the members of the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion subcommittee of the Local Arrangements Committee in advance of the conference. They can be reached at maa2023@medievalacademy.org and will respond to all queries; please include “ATTN: DEI Committee” in the email subject line.
Organizing Committees for the 2023 Meeting:
Conference co-chairs:
Jennifer R. Davis, History, The Catholic University of America
Laura K. Morreale, History, Affiliated with Georgetown University
Program Committee members:
Aaron M. Butts, Semitic and Egyptian Languages and Literatures, The Catholic University of America
Nikos D. Kontogiannis, Byzantine Archaeology, Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection
Anne E. Lester, History, Johns Hopkins University
Sarah McNamer, English and Medieval Studies, Georgetown University
Kristina Marie Olson, Italian, George Mason University
Owen Phelan, Church History, Mount St. Mary’s University
Jonathan S. Ray, Jewish Studies, Georgetown University
Ruma N. Salhi, History/Byzantine Studies, Northern Virginia Community College
Paul B. Sturtevant, Medievalism/Public History, The Public Medievalist
Belen Vicens Saiz, History, Salisbury University
Michelle C. Wang, Art History, Georgetown University
Matthew J. Westerby, Art History, Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA)
Local Arrangements Committee members:
Samuel Collins, History, George Mason University
Laine Doggett, French, St. Mary’s College of Maryland
Jill Fitzgerald, English, United States Naval Academy
Lilla Kopár, English, The Catholic University of America
Marcia Kupfer, Art History, Independent Scholar
Susan McDonough, History, University of Maryland, Baltimore County
Jennifer Paxton, History, The Catholic University of America
Marie Richards, History, Independent Scholar
Marianna Stell, Medieval Manuscripts and Early Books, Library of Congress
