News

Ninth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies
June 21-23, 2021
Saint Louis University
Saint Louis, Missouri

The Ninth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies (June 21-23, 2021) is a convenient summer venue in North America for scholars to present papers, organize sessions, participate in roundtables, and engage in interdisciplinary discussion. The goal of the Symposium is to promote serious scholarly investigation into all topics and in all disciplines of medieval and early modern studies.

The plenary speakers for this year will be David Abulafia, of Cambridge University, and Barbara Rosenwein, of Loyal University, Chicago.

The Symposium is held annually on the beautiful midtown campus of Saint Louis University. On campus housing options include affordable, air-conditioned apartments as well as a luxurious boutique hotel. Inexpensive meal plans are also available, although there is a wealth of restaurants, bars, and cultural venues within easy walking distance of campus.

While attending the Symposium participants are free to use the Vatican Film Library, the Rare Book and Manuscripts Collection, and the general collection at Saint Louis University's Pius XII Memorial Library.

The Ninth Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies invites proposals for papers, complete sessions, and roundtables. Any topics regarding the scholarly investigation of the medieval and early modern world are welcome. Papers are normally twenty minutes each and sessions are scheduled for ninety minutes. Scholarly organizations are especially encouraged to sponsor proposals for complete sessions.

For more information go to: https://www.smrs-slu.org/

An annnouncement for members from Michelle Partida-Armstrong for ASPHS about the Charles Julian Bishko Prize:

I'd like to bring to your attention the Charles Julian Bishko article prize, supported by the Association of Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies, for the best article published in 2019 in the field of medieval Iberian history by a North American scholar. As chair of the prize committee, I'd like to reach out to as many scholars as possible to consider submitting an article.

This year’s prize, which carries an honorarium of $250, will be announced at the 2020 annual meeting of ASPHS in Toronto (April 22-25, 2020).

The submission deadline is January 15, 2020.

Articles may be written in Castilian, English, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese or French.

Authors must be current members of the ASPHS. Authors should submit one copy of the article and a short (2-page) CV in PDF form to the chair of the committee and the committee members via email by 15 January, 2020.  For those who are not current members, membership is $50 for one year or $25 for non full-time faculty. Please direct your queries to me (marmstrongpartida@emory.edu), and send your submission to all committee members: Núria Silleras-Fernández (nuria.silleras-fernandez@colorado.edu) and Tom Barton (barton@sandiego.edu).

Happy holidays to everyone,

The American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain (AARHMS) welcomes applications for the Simon Barton Memorial Junior Scholar Travel Grants. In 2020, AARHMS will offer up to three grants of $500 each in support of travel for research or conference presentations in the field of medieval Iberian history. These grants are offered in memory of Simon Barton, a historian of medieval Iberia whose research was surpassed in quality only by the depth of his commitment to mentoring young scholars. It is AARHMS's hope that these small grants will make a big difference for the devoted young scholars who are striving to achieve great things.

Qualifications and Scope: The grant program is open to US citizens or permanent residents wishing to travel abroad for research or conference presentation, and to non-US citizens who wish to travel to the US for one of these purposes. All applicants must be active members of AARHMS, and must either be enrolled in doctoral programs or have received their doctorate within the previous five years.

Application Process:  Applicants must send a current CV, a letter of application explaining how they intend to use the grant, a brief external letter of endorsement, and a simple proposed budget. Applicants for a conference travel grant must also provide proof of their acceptance on an academic conference panel. All applications must be submitted as PDF files, via email, to the Secretary of AARHMS, at sec.tres.AARHMS@gmail.com.  Please submit any questions to the same email address. Applications must be submitted by February 1, 2020.

Conditions: The names of successful applicants will be announced by March 1, 2020. Grants will be directly payable to the awardees, who will be asked to write a reflection on their travel and experiences for the AARHMS website blog. All publications resulting from research or conference presentations supported by the grant must acknowledge the support of AARHMS.

Organizer: Erica Buchberger, University of Texas-Rio Grande Valley

Sponsors: American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain (AARHMS) and Texas Medieval Association (TEMA)

It has long been recognized that the "border" between Christian and Muslim Iberia was not a tidy line of us and them with a no-man's land in between; it was a fluid border region of shifting alliances, diverse layers of identity, and code-switching, much like the U.S.-Mexico borderlands.  The myth of a clear-cut division between Christians and Muslims was built through various stages of narrative and artistic construction for specific purposes in specific eras.

Papers are welcome on any aspect of borders and borderlands in medieval Iberia. This may include (but is not limited to) how medieval people experienced these borders, how they aimed to construct or reinforce them, and how modern impressions of medieval Iberia get it wrong (or right).

Papers will be 15-20 minutes in length. Participants will need to pay a registration fee to attend the conference, and may only present one paper (round tables do not count toward this limit). Please email a working title and short abstract to erica.buchberger@utrgv.edu by September 20, 2019.

The Sneak Preview of the Kalamazoo CFPs has already come out, so it's time to start organizing panels for AARHMS's 2020 ICMS programming!

Bridging the Divide: Jews, Christians, and Muslims in Medieval Iberian Studies

Scholarship on medieval Muslims, Christians, and Jews in the Iberian Peninsula intersects far less often than it should.  Particularly conspicuous is the disciplinary divide between the study of Jewish and Muslim communities and cultures, on the one hand, and Christian communities and cultures, on the other, in medieval Iberia.  Scholars in different sub-fields often work on similar topics, but do not always engage in a conversation with each other. This session aims to bring together scholars interested in bridging this disciplinary gap. We welcome topics of common interest to Iberianists, including (but not limited to) law and legal discourse; development of state and bureaucracy in Muslim and Christian kingdoms; empire and imperial ideology in Al-Andalus and Christian Iberia; ideas of jihad, crusade, and martyrdom; shared visual and literary cultures between the three faiths; women and gender roles in different religious groups; conversions to another faith; and piety and charity among Iberian Muslims, Jews, and Christians.

Race Before Raza in Medieval Iberian Studies I-II

(co-sponsored with TEMA)

Modern assumptions about race and identity have shaped scholarship on the Middle Ages since such work began. Few fields of study make this more evident than medieval Iberia, where centuries of interaction among diverse ethnic, religious, and cultural communities offer up a canvas for the projection of modern paradigms and ideologies. Although such models can provide a fresh lens through which to consider problems obscured by time and cultural distance, when employed carelessly or unconsciously they can badly distort our image of the medieval Iberian past. Our interdisciplinary sessions invites papers exploring how post-medieval discourse about race and identity has intersected—or could intersect—with modern understanding of the history and culture of the medieval Iberian peninsula. Submissions might consider the efficacy of applying modern concepts and terms to the study of medieval problems; the impact of unconscious or unspoken bias in evaluating medieval evidence; promising methodological strategies in study of the past; and the uses and misuses of medieval Iberian history in modern public and political discourse on race and identity. Both illustrative case studies and scholarly position papers will be considered.

Bishops at the Borders

(co-sponsored with Episcopus) 

A recent book review in Speculum noted that it was cool to study bishops again, and the importance of Medieval Iberia as a culturally-diverse space has commanded considerable attention in scholarly and public discussions. The intersection of these two recent scholarly trends presents an obvious and attractive overlap between the fields, creating lasting connections and conversations between both organizations’ interest groups. The differences between the kingdoms in Iberia, the subject of AARHMS scholarship, provide both similarity and contrast between the source bases while the focus of Episcopus on the role of bishops and the secular clergy provides a wider conversation in which Iberianists can participate.

Interested persons should contact the Conference Organizer.

The American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain (AARHMS) welcomes applications for our newly-renamed Simon Barton Memorial Junior Scholar Travel Grants. In 2018, AARHMS will offer up to three grants of $500 each in support of travel for research or conference presentations in the field of medieval Iberian history. These grants are offered in memory of Simon Barton, a historian of medieval Iberia whose research was surpassed in quality only by the depth of his commitment to mentoring young scholars. It is AARHMS's hope that these small grants will make a big difference for the devoted young scholars who are striving to achieve great things.

Qualifications and Scope: The grant program is open to US citizens or permanent residents wishing to travel abroad for research or conference presentation, and to non-US citizens who wish to travel to the US for one of these purposes. All applicants must be active members of AARHMS, and must either be enrolled in doctoral programs or have received their doctorate within the previous five years.

Application Process:  Applicants must send a current CV, a letter of application explaining how they intend to use the grant, a brief external letter of endorsement, and a simple proposed budget. Applicants for a conference travel grant must also provide proof of their acceptance on an academic conference panel. All applications must be submitted as PDF files, via email, to the Secretary of AARHMS, at sec.tres.AARHMS@gmail.com.  Please submit any questions to the same email address. Applications must be submitted by February 15, 2019.

Conditions: The names of successful applicants will be announced by March 15, 2019. Grants will be directly payable to the awardees, who will be asked to write a reflection on their travel and experiences for the AARHMS website blog. All publications resulting from research or conference presentations supported by the grant must acknowledge the support of AARHMS.

The Centro de Estudos de Sociologia e Estetica Medieval (CESEM) and the Instituto de Estudos Medievais (IEM) of the NOVA University of Lisbon are organizing two sessions for scholars working in the following areas: Musicology, Art History, Political and Social History, Codicology and Palaeography, Philosophy, Literature and Material studies.

We aim to approach Iberian manuscripts from the point of view of their materiality and production processes as well as from analysis of their artistic and literary meanings and contents. These two sessions promote an intense engagement with the concept of ‘intermediality’. Manuscripts are multifaceted and can be seen as material artefacts and as repositories of artistic creations, ideas, concepts, as well as of Iberian culture in a broader sense. The concept of intermediality helps us to understand how these aspects interact and can be approached by discussing texts, images and music, but also techniques, institutions, communities, geographical spaces, and changes along time. Concepts such as convergence, combination, influence, interaction, dependence (both explicit and implicit), communication, transmission, reception, integration, common and multiple discourse, might also be explored.

Intermediality will be tackled from both a methodological and epistemological perspective. Indeed, we encourage the analysis of case studies by multidisciplinary teams that work together by applying knowledge and methods that complement one another in addition to papers from individual researchers.

The deadline for sending the proposals is September 15, 2018. Please send your proposal (up to 300 words) and CV to Alicia Miguélez (amiguelez@fcsh.unl.pt). More info at: https://wmich.edu/medievalcongress

"Coins in Medieval Material Culture"

Proposed Sessions for the Leeds International Medieval Congress,

July 1-4, 2019

Commentators from Aristotle to Aquinas have recognized that coinage is primarily a

medium used to measure the need for or utility of other objects. But by its nature, coinage also forms a conspicuous part of a society’s material culture. While medieval coins did not carry the high-relief portraits of their ancient predecessors, they nonetheless give us direct evidence of visual and textual messages promulgated by governments. These sessions will broadly consider the extent to which coins in Latin Europe, Byzantium and Islam helped shape or were shaped by

the societies in which they circulated. Was the success of a coin dependent simply on its reliable fineness and weight or was its physical appearance a factor? Did authorities successfully employ coins as propaganda? How relevant were coin legends in a world where literacy was not widespread? Did coins successfully circulate across political or cultural boundaries? 

Please send a one‑page abstract along with a very brief curriculum vitae no later than 21 September 2018 to either:

Alan M. Stahl

Curator of Numismatics

Firestone Library RBSC

One Washington Road

Princeton NJ 08544

astahl@princeton.edu

(609) 258-9127

or

James Todesca

Department of History

Georgia Southern University

Savannah, GA 31419

jtodesca@georgiasouthern.edu

(912) 344‑2850

The American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain (AARHMS) welcomes applications for our newly-renamed Simon Barton Memorial Junior Scholar Travel Grants. In 2018, AARHMS will offer up to three grants of $500 each in support of travel for research or conference presentations in the field of medieval Iberian history. These grants are offered in memory of Simon Barton, a historian of medieval Iberia whose research was surpassed in quality only by the depth of his commitment to mentoring young scholars. It is AARHMS's hope that these small grants will make a big difference for the devoted young scholars who are striving to achieve great things.

Qualifications and Scope: The grant program is open to US citizens or permanent residents wishing to travel abroad for research or conference presentation, and to non-US citizens who wish to travel to the US for one of these purposes. All applicants must be active members of AARHMS, and must either be enrolled in doctoral programs or have received their doctorate within the previous five years.

Application Process:  Applicants must send a current CV, a letter of application explaining how they intend to use the grant, a brief external letter of endorsement, and a simple proposed budget. Applicants for a conference travel grant must also provide proof of their acceptance on an academic conference panel. All applications must be submitted as PDF files, via email, to the Secretary of AARHMS, at sec.tres.AARHMS@gmail.com.  Please submit any questions to the same email address. Applications must be submitted by May 31, 2018.

Conditions: The names of successful applicants will be announced by June 30, 2018. Grants will be directly payable to the awardees, who will be asked to write a reflection on their travel and experiences for the AARHMS website blog. All publications resulting from research or conference presentations supported by the grant must acknowledge the support of AARHMS.

After three years with the honor of serving as President of the American Academy of Research Historians of Medieval Spain, I am delighted to announce that-following the recent AARHMS elections-I will be succeeded by Prof. Maya Soifer Irish (Rice University) for the three-year term 2018-2021.

As AARHMS members will know, Prof. Irish is a highly accomplished scholar whose pivotal book Jews and Christians in Medieval Castile , which examines the rich fabric of a multiethnic society along the Camino de Santiago and beyond, mines a wide range of local archival sources in order to trace the waxing and waning fortunes of the Jewish community over a three-hundred-year period, to the brink of catastrophic violence. Her article "Beyond convivencia," published in the very first issue of the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies, has become an essential point of reference for all of us working on interfaith relations in medieval Spain. The first female president of AARHMS, Prof. Irish will bring new perspectives to the field at a time when exciting changes are afoot in the framing of medieval studies as a whole, while continuing our efforts to expand outreach to new communities of scholars in all parts of the world.

My warmest congratulations both to Prof. Irish and to Prof. Miguel Gómez (University of Dayton), who has been re-elected as Secretary-Treasurer of AARHMS. Prof. Gómez has helped to ensure that the organization remains on an excellent financial footing, allowing us to offer a number of junior scholar travel grants in 2017, for the first time in the organization's history. Finally, thanks to Kyle Lincoln (Kalamazoo College), who-inter alia-has been responsible for the smooth running of our elections and our website. As we move into a new phase of AARHMS history, we welcome your ideas and initiatives, your blog entries and your book reviews; don't forget to renew your membership, and consider offering one as a gift to a junior colleague in the field!