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The Medieval Association of the Midwest
Welcome to the online home for the Medieval Association of the Midwest (MAM), a collection of professors, students, and other scholars who share a deep interest in the Middle Ages. MAM encourages scholarly communication on Medieval Studies through its meetings, sponsoring sessions at the International Congress for Medieval Studies, its journal Enarratio, and many other ways. |
We are looking for a new Convenor of Conferences. Interested in becoming President of MAM -
join us for our April 15th general MAM member zoom call for more information.
Meeting ID: 928 4166 8723
Description of Convenor of Conferences (created March 2024)
The convenor of conferences, a member of MAM’s Executive Council, is responsible for organizing and executing papers sessions, panels, and organizational meetings sponsored by the Medieval Association of the Midwest at academic conferences. These conferences include regional, national, and international events, though the primary work centers on organizing MAM-sponsored events at the International Medieval Congress held each spring at Western Michigan University. Key responsibilities including soliciting session ideas at MAM’s annual meeting at the Congress, submitting session proposals (typically between 5-7 sessions) to the Congress online platform in June, encouraging papers submissions for accepted sessions in September, organizing business meetings for MAM at the Congress (typically one for the Executive Council and the general body, which includes scheduling rooms and food), and, finally, overseeing the execution of MAM’s sessions during the conference. In some years MAM sponsors sessions at additional events (regional medieval conferences, Leeds), and the Convenor of Conferences oversees creation and execution of those as well.
The office of the President is up for renewal.
Please contact Mickey Sweeney if you have any questions about the position. Please contact our secretary Amity Reading if you would like to self-nominate, or nominate others (please be sure to have that person's consent).
Description of the position of President:
The president is responsible for organizing and attending meetings in which the business of MAM is accomplished and maintaining continuity over the years of presidency. It entails working closely with the Board to ensure that what MAM has undertaken to execute is done in a fair and thoughtful way. In my experience, the job of president has included efforts to transition to a zoom friendly format, updating what needs modernizing to function more effectively, and the development of a plan for future success and stability. This work is ongoing.
Looking forward to our joint MAM & Pearl Poet Leeds Session! Come join us - July 3rd!
Here are our seven MAM-accepted sessions for Kalamazoo 2024 (May 9-11th):
1. Defending the Medieval to Your University: Practical Discussions for Students, Colleagues, and Administrators (A Roundtable, Session 446)
2. "Maken vertu of necessitee": Teaching Medieval and What Else? (A Roundtable, Session 408)
3. Revisiting Speech Acts of the Medieval North (Session 75)
4. Viking Studies and the Medieval North: New Approaches (Session 21)
7. The Not-So-Minor Poems: Patience, Cleanness, and St. Erkenwald (Virtual, Session 216)
Lunch meeting for Councilors: (p.19 ICMS) Student Center 2208 Thursday 12-1 (Zoom possible please ask for it)
MEETING FOR ALL MAM members and guests, interested parties, graduate students, medievalists in general
Thursday 6-7 Student Center 3203 - Fireplace Lounge - Zoom possible (be sure to ask for it)
1. Defending the Medieval to Your University: practical discussions for students, colleagues, and administrators ROUNDTABLE—FULLY ONLINE
The medieval world—including its literature, history, faith practices, customers, and cultures—has come under attack for its colonialist impulses, its traditional inclusion in the liberal arts canon, and its misappropriation by modern extremists. Should we continue defending teaching this material, and if so, what different arguments work best for convincing our students, colleagues, and administrators? This roundtable will bring together multiple voices to contribute diverse answers and offer valuable resources for attendees needing a breadth of defense strategies.
2. “Maken vertu of necessitee”: Teaching Medieval and What Else? ROUNDTABLE—FULLY ONLINE
What do you teach beyond the Middle Ages, and what have you learned in preparing yourself? Medievalists are increasingly called to teach classes like World literature, Classics, Early Modern, First Year Seminar, and writing across the disciplines. This roundtable invites participants to discuss best strategies for teaching beyond the medieval along with the numerous benefits. Speakers might explore topics like 1) surprising ways teaching outside the medieval has influenced their research; 2) how cross-disciplinary positions have inspired new courses, team-teaching, or experimental pedagogy; and 3) how individuals have let their medieval flag fly in a variety of courses.
3. Revisiting Speech Acts of the Medieval North TRADITIONAL PAPERS SESSION jointly sponsored with Medieval Speech Act Society
This session will address the function of discourse in medieval northern world as evident in Old Norse-Icelandic, Germanic, Old English, and related Latin texts. Past studies of verbal exchanges in these corpora have prompted some of the most enduring questions about medieval life and literature—questions about flyting, gender identity, religious conversion, political upheaval, and social status, to name a few. The application of the linguistic studies of pragmatics and speech act theory to these longstanding topics promises to bring fresh insights due to the methodologies’ systematic approach to the relationship between intended speaker-meaning and cultural and speech-situational context.
4. Viking Studies and the Medieval North: New Approaches TRADITIONAL PAPERS SESSION
In a world of constant change, medievalists have adapted to new ways of uncovering the past, as with the "Secrets of the Ice" project. However, excavating ice patches is not the only new approach to unearthing the complex history of the Medieval North. This session highlights the work of postgraduates, postdoctoral, and early and career researchers to submit proposals that engage with new approaches to Viking Studies and the Medieval North. We especially encourage interdisciplinary approaches and methodologies. Topics may include exploring connections with pedagogy, connections between Old Norse and other texts, and new finds in Viking archaeology.
7. "The Not-so-minor Poems: Patience, Cleanness, and St. Erkenwald." Virtual - (jointly sponsored with International Pearl Poet Society)
While Pearl and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight have been the primary focus of numerous essays, monographs, translations, and other scholarly projects (not to mention adaptations across various media), the other three poems associated with the Pearl Poet – Patience, Cleanness, and St. Erkenwald – have enjoyed considerably less popularity and attention. This session seeks to celebrate these three frequently-overlooked poems by inviting proposals exploring them from any number of scholarly perspectives. The goal of the session is to advance study of these three fascinating poems, create space for conversation about them, and encourage further research.
The link to the CFP at the Congress’s site: https://icms.confex.com/icms/2024/cfp.cgi
Other 2024 Conferences:
Check out Enarratio (Volume 23, 2022) online at the Knowledge Bank of The Ohio State University!While you are there, you can page through the past issues all the way back to the first volume published in 1991!
Learn more about MAMThe Medieval Association has been promoting the study of medieval culture, history and languages for over 40 years. Become part of the MAM community. On the About page you can learn more about MAM's:
Upcoming events
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