Publications

The Once and Future Classroom: Resources for Teaching the Middle Ages

The Once and Future Classroom dedicates itself to encouraging and facilitating medieval studies at the K-12 and college levels. This peer-reviewed online journal is for and by teachers of subjects related to the Middle Ages. We publish various types of work, including:

accounts for teachers of emerging work in fields of research related to medieval studies
lesson plans
critical reviews of web resources, audiovisual materials, and other secondary works suitable for classroom use
reports on promising new classroom techniques, educational programs, curricula, digital innovations, and methods of evaluating instructional effectiveness
annotated bibliographies on medieval studies themes
responses to previous articles
reviews of literature and films related to medieval studies and directed at children, young adults, and college level adults

Manuscripts and any additional inquiries should be submitted to:
Deborah Sinnreich-Levi, Managing Editor

TEAMS Medieval Institute Publications

Medieval Institute Publications at Western Michigan University publishes several series of affordable classroom texts for TEAMS (the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages). Medieval Institute Publications played a founding role in setting up a series of affordable classroom texts with TEAMS. Originally focused on making available accessible editions of Middle English texts, the program has now successfully expanded into translations or facing-page editions and translations from other medieval vernacular languages, biblical and secular commentary genres, historical documents, and musical treatises and works. The most successful editions have today sold more than six thousand copies and have been adopted in classrooms for twenty years or more.

Middle English Texts Series (METS)

The series is designed to make available texts that occupy an important place in the literary and cultural canon but have not been readily obtainable in student editions. The focus is on Middle English literature adjacent to such major authors as Chaucer or Malory. The editions include glosses of difficult words and short introductions on the history of the work, its merits and points of topical interest, and brief bibliographies.

Proposals or completed projects to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to the general editor, Thomas Hahn; the executive director, Anna Siebach-Larsen; and the series acquisitions editor, Tyler Cloherty.

Questions about the series in general or getting copies of any TEAMS publication can be sent to Theresa Whitaker, Editor-in-Chief.

Commentary Series

The Commentary Series is designed for classroom use. Its goal is to make available to teachers and students useful examples of the vast tradition of medieval commentary on sacred scripture. The series includes English translations of works written in a number of medieval languages and from various centuries and religious traditions. The series focuses on treatises which have relevance to the many fields of Medieval Studies, including theories of allegory and literature, history of art, music, spirituality, and political thought. The editions include short introductions which set the context and suggest the importance of each work. Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to E. Ann Matter (Emerita, University of Pennsylvania), Series Editor, or to Tyler Cloherty, Acquisitions Editor.

Board Members:

E. Ann Matter, emerita, University of Pennsylvania, Series Editor
Thomas E. Burman, University of Notre Dame
John C. Cavadini, University of Notre Dame
Robert Harris, Jewish Theological Seminary of America (New York)
Jim O'Donnell, Arizona State University
Lesley Smith, University of Oxford
Frans van Liere, Calvin University

Secular Commentary Series

The Secular Commentary Series provides modern English translations of medieval texts that analyze, annotate and explicate classical and vernacular works. Dating from the fourth through the sixteenth century, these texts represent various traditions (grammatical, allegorical, exegetical, academic and humanistic). The works they elucidate include poetry, fiction, history, philosophy and scientific treatises. Each volume of the series contains a critical introduction and select bibliography, a clear prose translation and notes designed to gloss difficult passages. The aim of the series is to support teaching in the broadest sense: the volumes are suitable for the classroom and serve as an aid for scholars and generalist readers across the full range of the humanities. Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Tyler Cloherty, Acquisitions Editor.

Frank Coulson, The Ohio State University, Series Editor

Documents of Practice Series

The series consists of volumes that contain translations of selected primary documents that illustrate various aspects of the life experience of medieval men and women. By making some of the matter of historical generalization available to students, the series will enliven efforts to understand what medieval people thought and felt as they moved through the major passages of their lives.

Proposals or completed projects to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Joel T. Rosenthal (Emeritus, State University of New York, Stony Brook, Series Editor, or to Tyler Cloherty, Acquisitions Editor.

Advisory Board:

William Chester Jordan, Princeton University
Sara Lipton, Stony Brook University
Jonathan Rotondo-McCord, Xavier University of Louisiana.

French of Medieval England Bilingual Editions

The series is designed to encourage the editing and translation of significant Anglo-French texts. The volumes are designed for classroom use in courses in Medieval English, Medieval French and Anglo-Norman, and Comparative Medieval Studies, and they will also be valuable to advanced scholars in related fields. In most cases, books will feature edited texts and facing-page modern English translations. Our particular interest is in neglected works and authors, including previously unedited or hard-to-access texts.

David Raybin, Professor Emeritus, Eastern Illinois University, Series Editor

Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Tyler Cloherty, acquisitions editor for the series, or the series editor, David Raybin, Professor Emeritus, Eastern Illinois University.

Medieval German Texts in Bilingual Editions Series

The series is designed for classroom use in German and Medieval Studies as well as for the more advanced scholar in fields adjacent to that of German literature: the historian, Latinist, theologian, or romanist who wishes to extend her or his reading and research across those largely artificial borders that still divide medievalists unnecessarily. Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to CJ Jones, University of Notre Dame, Series Editor or to Tyler Cloherty, Acquisitions Editor.

Maria Dobozy, Emerita, University of Utah
Ann Marie Rasmussen, University of Waterloo
Markus Stock, University of Toronto
Olga Trokhimenko, UNC Wilmington

Medieval Music in Context

The TEAMS Medieval Music in Context series seeks to publish editions, translations, and studies of medieval music-theoretical treatises and literary texts with significant musical engagements, including works of poetry and prose with embedded music (notated or unnotated). The volumes are designed for classroom use in, e.g., music history, music theory, literature, and medieval studies courses, while still offering contributions useful for more specialized research. The series encourages a global reach and is intended to encompass texts and musical traditions in Latin and European vernaculars, Byzantine Greek, Hebrew, Arabic, and Persian.

Andrew Hicks, Cornell University, Series Editor

Proposals or complete manuscripts to be considered for publication should be sent to Tyler Cloherty, acquisitions editor for the series, or the series editor, Andrew Hicks, Associate Professor of Music and Medieval Studies, Cornell University.

Medieval Textual Cultures of Central and Southeast Europe Series

The Medieval Textual Cultures of Central and Southeast Europe is a peer-reviewed series that publishes modern English translations of medieval texts of diverse genres and content that focus on central and southeastern European lands in order to promote and make teaching and research of this region accessible to wider audiences. By making primary sources available and properly contextualized in contemporary academic discourse for use in the classroom and in research for medievalists working in a range of disciplines and linguistic traditions, the series strives to fill an important gap in the cohesive study of medieval European Latinity and related Slavonic traditions of Central and Southeast Europe.

In addition to an annotated English translation of a primary source, each volume of the series contains a critical introduction that provides relevant cultural and historical background, a balanced and inclusive overview of the state of scholarship about the published text, and select bibliography for further reading. In most cases, annotated English translations are accompanied by parallel original texts copied from a manuscript or a published edition, usually without full scholarly apparatus.

Julia Verkholantsev, University of Pennsylvania, Series Editor
Antoaneta Granberg, University of Gothenburg
Paul W. Knoll, University of Southern California
Petra Mutlová, Masaryk University, Brno
Balázs Nagy, Eötvös Loránd University / Central European University
Mateo Žagar, University of Zagreb, Croatian Academy of Sciences and Arts

Proposals for new volumes should include samples of introductory material and annotated translation. Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication should be sent to Tyler Cloherty, acquisitions editor for the series, or the series editor, Julia Verkholantsev, University of Pennsylvania.

TEAMS Varia Series

The Varia series is designed for the use of both scholar and instructor, and contains works of great originality and import within the medieval canon. Often, these works (e.g., musical treatises or chivalric materials) do not fit neatly into the other TEAMS series—which cover such topics as late medieval English or German vernacular literature, historical documents and religious or secular commentaries; as such, Varia functions as a trove of eclectic sources and studies. Proposals or completed manuscripts to be considered for publication by Medieval Institute Publications should be sent to Tyler Cloherty, Acquisitions Editor.

Also from TEAMS: The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell (DVD)(performed by Linda Marie Zaerr)

This energetic video version of “The Weddynge of Sir Gawen and Dame Ragnell” presents the entire text in Middle English, but in a format that makes it understandable to general audiences. Costumes, harp music, and a beautiful outdoor setting enhance the storytelling.

This analog to the Wife of Bath’s tale begins with a strange knight threatening King Arthur in the forest. He makes Arthur vow to return in a year and tell him what women desire most: finding the answer is the only thing that will save Arthur, and the only person who can give him that answer is an ugly hag, who will help only if Sir Gawen will marry her.

This 45-minute video is published by the Chaucer Studio for TEAMS, the Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages, with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Boise State University. It complements an edition of the text published by TEAMS in the Middle English Texts Series—Sir Gawain: Eleven Romances and Tales, ed. Thomas Hahn (Kalamazoo, 1995; second printing 2000).

Linda Marie Zaerr has produced the video in collaboration with Videographer Rod Cashin and Harpist Laura Zaerr. Video performance in Middle English narrated by Linda Marie Zaerr. Gothic harp accompaniment by Laura Zaerr. Joint production of The Consortium for the Teaching of the Middle Ages, the National Endowment for the Humanities, Boise State University, and Chaucer Studio.