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The Lone Medievalist held its business meeting at ICMS 2017. The following are the minutes for those who could not attend:
I. Update on 2016 priorities
The 2017 LM roundtable was held at the ICMS on Saturday, May 13. The participants were Kisha Tracy, Geoffrey B. Elliott, Andrew M. Pfrenger, Leah Haught, and Megan E. Hartman, with John P. Sexton moderating.
The language study groups and writing groups suggested at the 2016 meeting are in progress, with an announcement expected later in the summer.
The first LM volume, The Ballad of the Lone Medievalist, has been accepted for publication by Punctum Press and will be forthcoming shortly. An announcement will be made through social media when a definite date is known.
II. Announcements and discussions
The LM is now a CARA-affiliated organization. Kisha Tracy also noted that the Medieval Academy of America, and particularly MAA Executive Director Lisa Fagin-Davis, has been extremely supportive of and interested in LM.
With the forthcoming publication of Ballad, the LM is beginning to consider ideas for one or more additional volumes. Potential idea proposed at the meeting included the significance of studying the Middle Ages, potentially including: the current need for medievalists as public intellectuals (especially as a check on those who would claim a medieval justification for nationalist or racist ideologies); the value of collaborative effort in medieval studies; the “dark ages” problem; the expanding notion of what “the medieval” is and means; and the links between medieval studies and other scholarly allegiances (LBGTQ+, Medievalists of Color, Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship, etc.).
The LM Summer Book Exchange will be repeated in the summer of 2017.
We discussed strategies for expanding the activity of LM into regional conferences, especially as a tool for bringing LMs together at these events. Pursuant to this goal, we will establish a social media presence for the purpose of allowing LMs attending regional conferences to coordinate social and professional contact. We will also look into coordinating with conference organizers to establish a semi-official presence for LM at these gatherings.
We also discussed the ways that LM can expand its support of the scholarly work of isolated medievalists. Besides the support of regional conference attendance, we proposed promoting CFPs (especially those which seem friendly to LM interests) and possibly organizing a forum wherein LMs could ask for help tracking down scholarly materials unavailable to them. We will look into this and determine the best way to proceed with these.
III. Plans for 2018 ICMS
Per suggestions from the assembly at the meeting, we will propose roundtables on the subjects of “Collaboration as a Key to Professional Productivity” and/or “Technology, Medieval Digital Humanities, and the Lone Medievalist.”
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Happy to report that the Lone Medievalist-sponsored panel at SEMA 2017 (Nov 16-18 in Charleston, SC) has been accepted! Thank you to the LM SEMA point person, Mary Valante!
Roundtable: Collaborative Teaching and the Lone Medievalist
Sponsored by: The Lone Medievalist
Presider: Mary A. Valante, Appalachian State University
<div class=”text_exposed_show”>Alan Baragona: “Going Far Afield: Engineering Collaboration with STEM”
Elizabeth Rambo, Campbell University: “How not to Succeed in offering a Multidisciplinary Minor in Medieval Studies”
Lee Templeton, North Carolina Wesleyan College: “Thoughts on a Medieval Inter-Institutional Course”
Patrick Wadden, Belmont Abbey College: “Inter-institutional, Collaborative Teaching of Medieval Irish History, or How the Irish, the Vikings and the English Can All Get Along”
Melissa Elmes, Lindenwood University: “Collaborative Assignment Design: A Hands-On Practicum”</div>
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CFP: Out of the Cloister: Lone Medievalists Making the Middle Ages Matter </div>
Contributions of any style and various lengths welcome!
Second volume of essays from The Lone Medievalist! Forthcoming soon: The Ballad of the Lone Medievalist from punctum press.
For many medievalists who have had the good fortune to find jobs in academe, the professional reality is that we are unlikely to be surrounded by colleagues who share our areas of expertise and interest. In most cases, a department will hire only a single medieval specialist – and may be hard-pressed to convince administrations or hiring committees to approve even that one. Those lucky few who find a tenure-track position will then spend years explaining their work to colleagues, chairs, grant committees, and eventually tenure reviewers who know little about the work we do.
This collection, as the title suggests, is especially focused on the significance of studying the Middle Ages. What is the role of the medievalist in the modern public sphere? How do we communicate this significance to various communities (students, colleagues, promotion and tenure committees, the general public)? How do we address misconceptions and misappropriations of the Middle Ages? How do we talk about the medieval in ways that make sense for a non-specialist (or even disinterested) audience? And, throughout all of these questions, how is the Lone Medievalist uniquely situated to think about and/or promote the significance of the Middle Ages? How can Lone Medievalists engage more in the public face of Medieval Studies? What is it that we want to communicate? How can we help others to communicate the significance of the Middle Ages?
Potential ideas for focus (certainly not limited to and could be combined):
- What is the significance of studying the Middle Ages?
- How are Lone Medievalists uniquely situated to think about and/or promote the significance of the Middle Ages?
- Communicating significance to students
- Communicating significance to colleagues/departments
- Communicating significance to promotion and tenure committees
- Communicating significance to the public
- Engaging with popular ideas of the Middle Ages
- Engaging with the appropriation of the Middle Ages by certain groups (i.e. politicians, white supremacists, etc.)
Send proposals (do not have to be too long or formal – around 100-200 words to give us a good sense of your idea) either through Facebook messaging or to the email addresses: ktracy3@fitchburgstate.edu and john.sexton@bridgew.edu. We are looking for a combination of anecdotes, stories, longer essays, manifestos, and advice – various lengths, any style. We do recommend 1000-5000 words (longer will be considered as well) or the equivalent (e.g. a photographic essay or a collection of documents). We anticipate a quick turnaround on this, so let’s get moving! The initial deadline for proposals will be September 15, 2017. The initial deadline for contributions is scheduled for January 31, 2018.
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