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[1] 'Tis (Not) But a Scratch: New Directions in Medieval Graffitological Scholarship

From: Sarah Frisbie

Often divorced from visual studies, inaccessible beyond its support, and erased by well-meaning conservation efforts, medieval and early modern graffiti is difficult to study yet essential for understanding the Middle Ages. Scholars and students of all levels are invited to submit abstracts for papers on medieval and early modern graffiti. The session welcomes interest in graffiti among varied disciplines, such as philosophy, musicology, art history, military history, and theology, and among public-facing institutions concerned with the display and preservation of graffiti in situ and elsewhere. Papers of the “material” and “global” turns and in the digital humanities are especially encouraged.

Please submit a 300-word abstract to https://tinyurl.com/icmsgraffiti2025 by Sept. 15, 2024.

Please direct all questions to organizer Sarah Frisbie via sarah.frisbiecase.edu

Selected participants will be notified by October 15, 2024.
We look forward to your submission!

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[2] The Middle Ages Reloaded: Activism, Public Engagement, and Political Realities

From: Larisa Grollemond

Organizers:
Larisa Grollemond, Assistant Curator of Medieval and Renaissance Manuscripts, Getty Museum
Laura Tillery, Assistant Professor of Art History, Hamilton College

In 2025, we’ll be a quarter century into the new millennium. Medievalists actively engage with topics of globalism, race-making, gender inequities, underrepresented narratives, and marginalized voices. Against our recent, inclusive reorientation of the field, educators, scholars, and curators are nonetheless faced with real-world constraints that prohibit and limit the ways in which we can talk about the Middle Ages to students and public audiences. Where and how we work matters more than ever right now.

Our roundtable panel seeks to draw attention to how we speak of the Middle Ages during tumultuous times. We aim to highlight real-world issues and ways of creating and innovating against the crises in education, institutional constraints, and social disparities at large. For example, how one teaches the Middle Ages in the classroom is increasingly subject to state and local curricular mandates. In museums, exhibitions and acquisitions are frequently dependent on fundraising structures, donor relations, and stewardship.Throughout the field, inequitable institutional and social structures condition who gets to participate in the telling of the Middle Ages, and even within those structures, the labor required to engage remains invisible or unacknowledged.

We are seeking contributions to a roundtable on the current praxis of the Middle Ages as we are in the midst of rapid cultural changes. Participants should propose present issues and/or future-oriented questions about how we teach, curate, and research the Middle Ages. How do we get around restrictions placed upon us to talk, write, educate, and create the Middle Ages in inclusive, global, and meaningful ways? How can we balance activism with work that is historically responsible? Do we envision disruptions to larger systems that would fundamentally change the field of medieval studies?

Interested panelists should submit a 100-word bio and 200-word abstract that concretely conveys examples of recent changes to, or future goals for, your practice as a medievalist. We are looking for short talks (ca. 8 minutes) on actionable changes to the field, recommendations for the future, and/or strategies that grapple with the changing U.S. political landscape. We especially welcome non-traditional forms of academic presentations, including personal reflections, public engagement and writing, innovative pedagogical approaches, social media and digital projects, and emerging platforms broadly speaking. Panelists from a variety of contexts/positions/career stages are strongly encouraged to apply, including: K–12 public educators, government and public service workers, curators and staff from museums and cultural institutions, those with non-academic affiliations, graduate students, as well as retired, tenure-track and contingent faculty from higher education, among others.

Please direct all questions to organizer Larisa Grollemond via lgrollemondgetty.edu