The Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (SIMS) is pleased to announce that the call for applications for its 2026-2027 Visiting Research Fellowship program is now open. Guided by the vision of its founders, Lawrence J. Schoenberg and Barbara Brizdle Schoenberg, SIMS aims to bring manuscript culture, modern technology, and people together to provide access to and understanding of our shared intellectual heritage. Part of the Penn Libraries, SIMS oversees an extensive collection of premodern manuscripts from around the world, with a special focus on the history of philosophy and science, and creates open-access digital content to support the study of its collections.

SIMS-Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures Collaborative Fellowship

In addition to our usual Visiting Research Fellowships (see below for details), we are delighted to announce a new collaborative fellowship opportunity with the Centre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures (CSMC) at the University of Hamburg. The SIMS-CSMC Fellowship will allow the recipient to take advantage of the expertise and manuscript resources at Penn Libraries and CSMC’s expertise in the Humanities, material analysis and/or Computer Science for manuscript research. The one-month SIMS fellowship comes with a stipend of $5000 and must take place before the CSMC fellowship. The SIMS fellowship can be scheduled anytime from July 1, 2026, to June 30, 2027. The CSMC fellowship offers a monthly stipend of between $2590–$4463 (depending on the number of years after the PhD) plus Hamburg-return travel costs for one to three months and can be scheduled any time from January 1, 2027, to December 31, 2027.

For more information about the SIMS-CSMC Collaborative Fellowship and to apply, visit this website. Applications are due Friday, May 1, 2026.

Visiting Research Fellowships

The Visiting Research Fellowship program offers $5000 to spend 1 month (minimum of 4 work weeks) at SIMS between July 1, 2026, and June 30, 2027. Up to 3 fellowships will be awarded. SIMS continues partnering with the American Trust for the British Library (ATBL) to offer SIMS Visiting Research Fellows the opportunity to apply to the ATBL for a further $2,500 to support research on the same project at the British Library. The ATBL fellowship will be awarded in the following year. If a SIMS fellowship is awarded, then the ATBL will reach out to the applicant and request that they apply.

For more information about the Visiting Research Fellowships and to apply, visit this website. Applications are due Friday, May 1, 2026

But there's always something going on at TEAMS.

• If you haven't yet made your plans to go to Kzoo for ICMS, it's not too late.
• If you haven't submitted an article, a lesson plan, or other pedagogical materials to The Once and Future Classroom, here's your chance.
• If you want to learn about TEAMS publications, or submit a proposal to one of the series, scroll further down on the same page.
• If you would like TEAMS to sponsor a session you are chairing, contact Deborah Sinnreich-Levi.
• If you haven't asked all your medieval friends to join TEAMS, it's never too late.

• And just for fun, if you've always wondered about those fighting snails...

The Accessible Medievalist is Prof. Kisha G. Tracy (Fitchburg S.U.), who tells stories about medieval people with disabilities and makes the Middle Ages accessible to everyone. In addition to regular podcast episodes, the Accessible Medievalist project will feature publicly accessible resources on the Medieval Heritages of the Marginalized and on Why Study the Middle Ages?, including presentations, radio show episodes, articles, and more.

Medieval Heritages of the Marginalized was given the 2024 Disability History Association Research for Justice and Equity Award. It will host open access, self-paced workshops for those interested in learning more about different subjects. The first one, Disability and Accessibility, is already live. It includes a section on Teaching Medieval Disability with resources and assignment ideas. Two more workshops – on Gender and Sexuality and Diversity and (Dis)Connection – will be debuted in the next few weeks. There will eventually also be resources for K-16 teachers.

Podcast Episodes:

Welcome to the Accessible Medievalist!

Down Syndrome and Researching Disability

MedievalSoMuchMore BINGO

Medieval Heritages of the Marginalized:  Gender and Sexuality Workshop

The Man with the Knife-Hand Prosthetic

St. Bartholomew's Disability Miracles

Medieval Heritages of the Marginalized Diversity and (Dis)Connection Workshop

Follow on social media:

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The 61st International Congress on Medieval Studies will take place Thursday, May 14, through Saturday, May 16, 2026.      

                                                    VIEW THE 2026 MEETING SITE

Registration is open!            

                                                    REGISTER FOR ICMS 2026

TEAMS-Sponsored Sessions at ICMS 2026

Mark your calendars and join us at these sessions at K’zoo this year.

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Session 23, Thursday, May 14, 8:30-10am, Sangren Hall 4715

Ugly Is as Ugly Does: Physiognomy as Signifier in Medieval Literature and Culture

Presider:  Deborah Sinnreich-Levi

· “The Physiognomy of the Demonic: Portraits of Saracens in the Chansons de geste and Le jeu de S. Nicolas,” Joel N. Feimer, Independent Scholar

· “Marked by the Body: Ugliness, Otherness, and the Semiotics of Appearance in Medieval Literature,” Georgina Z. Crespi, Univ. of Reading

· “Monstrous Children in Norwegian Medieval Law Codes,” Torgeir Landro, NLA Høgskolen

· “(Trans)Formative Monstrosity and the "Ugly" Wyrm's Turn: Eleanor Rykener and John Mandeville in Dialogue,” Johanna W. Alden, Boston College

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Session 239, Friday, May 15, 1:30-3pm, Waldo Library 1070 (Multipurpose Room)

Ludic Lessons (A Roundtable)

Presiders:  Clint E. Morrison Jr., Univ. of Texas–Austin & Thomas C. Sawyer, Univ. of Chicago

· Arielle C. McKee, Wake Forest University

· Melissa Ridley Elmes, Lindenwood University.

· Mary A. Valente, Appalachian State University

· Antonia DiNardo, Univ. of North Carolina–Chapel Hill

· Tamara J. McCarty, Arkın Yaratıcı Sanatlar ve Tasarım Üniv. Top of Form

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Session 276, Friday, May 15, 3:30-5pm, Waldo Library 3016 (Multipurpose Room)

If We Ever Get out of Here: Teaching Medieval Studies in a Shifting Political Landscape

Presider:  Bonnie Wheeler, Southern Methodist Univ.

Respondent:  Larissa "Kat" Tracy, Univ. of Maryland–Baltimore County

· “Teaching the Conflicts: Medievalists, Public Medievalists, and Medievalism-ists and Their Classrooms,” Richard Utz, Georgia Institute of Technology

· “Leaning in to the DEI Debate: The Responsibility, Power, and Influence of Senior Faculty in Medieval Studies,” Dorsey Armstrong, Arthuriana / Purdue Univ.

· “Ch-ch-ch-ch-changes at a State Flagship University,” Julie Human, Univ. of Kentucky

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Session 354, Saturday, May 16, 1:30-3pm, Sangren Hall 1310 / Hybrid

The TEAMS / Bonnie Wheeler Session: Christine de Pizan on the Seductions of Chivalry in the Dit de Poissy and Epistre Othea

Presider:  Deborah Sinnreich-Levi, TEAMS

Christine's choice of a conventional love-debate poem to present original techniques and ideas will be discussed.

· Christine de Pizan's Dit de Poissy: "Un si bel lieu, si bien ordonne": A Medieval Heroine Seduced by Dominican Moral Virtues,” Kandace Brill Lombart, Independent Scholar

· “The Epistre Othea as the Framing Context for Christine de Pizan's Treatment of Chivalry in Her Lyric Poetry,” Earl Jeffrey Richards, Bergische Univ. Wuppertal

· Suzanne Hélène Savoy, Independent Scholar, will read excerpts from her translation of le dit de Poissy and Blumenfeld-Kosinski/Richards' translation of l'epistre Othea to explore Christine's depiction of chevaliers in these two works published in 1400.

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The Body in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Keene State College,Keene, NH, USA

Friday and Saturday April 10-11, 2026

Call for Papers and Sessions

The 46th Medieval and Renaissance Forum will take place in person on Friday, April 10, and Saturday, April 11, 2026, at Keene State College in Keene, New Hampshire. This year's conference considers “the body” in the broadest way possible. As always, we also welcome papers on any and every topic related to the Middle Ages or the Renaissance as well as papers on medievalism. We plan to hold the 46th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum in person with a limited number of virtual presentations.We welcome abstracts (one page or less) from faculty, students, and independent scholars. If you are an undergraduate student, we ask that you obtain a faculty member's approval and sponsorship.

Graduate students are eligible for consideration for the South Wind Graduate Student Paper Award upon submission of their essays by March 1, 2026. The winner of the South Wind Graduate Student Paper Award will win $100 to be used for registration and/or travel expenses to the 47th Annual Medieval and Renaissance Forum (travel expenses including but not limited to transportation to and from the conference and accommodations while in Keene). The winner of the South Wind Graduate Student Paper Award will be announced at the Medieval Feast on Friday, April 10, 2026.

Please submit abstracts and full contact information on the google form available at:  https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeHh7CZUvViEst4nQryT2e-Pi1V1hhPCF5ciQESAUPzvSg2ww/viewform?usp=publish-editor.

The keynote speaker is Colby Gordon, (Bryn Mawr College), who will speak on "Margaret Cavendish's Trans Kabbalah":  Is gender identity a secularized version of the Christian soul? And if so, where does that leave the body?

This talk considers the religious prehistories of the apparently secular clinical apparatus that, today, manages trans life, linking Margaret Cavendish’s 1666 utopian fiction The Blazing World with the later sexological fascination with the transmigration of souls as an explanation for sexual inversion. Colby Gordon is an Associate Professor in the Department of Literatures in English at Bryn Mawr College. With Simone Chess and Will Fisher, he edited a special issue of The Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies on early modern trans studies, the first published collection to bring the conceptual vocabulary of trans studies into the analysis of gender in early modern literature and culture. In 2022, the Shakespeare Association of America named his essay "A Woman's Prick" the winner of its Innovative Article Award. His first book, Glorious Bodies: Trans Theology and Renaissance Literature, is forthcoming from the University of Chicago Press (2024). He is currently at work on a second monograph entitled The Trans Debate and the Jewish Question.

Abstract deadline: January 15, 2026

Presenters and early registration: March 15, 2026

See also:  https://shaksper.net/current-postings/35411-cfp-46th-annual-medieval-and-renaissance-forum

As always, we look forward to greeting returning and first-time participants to Keene!

The History for the 21st Century Project (H21, https://www.history21.com/) has just launched a new, open-access teaching module on the late medieval plague pandemic, commonly known as the Black Death. Authored by historian of medicine, Monica H. Green, a Fellow of the Medieval Academy of America, the module presents the first global narrative of the pandemic, from its origins in Central Asia up through its fullest impact in the mid-14th century.

The four-part module – entitled The Black Death: The Medieval Plague Pandemic through the Eyes of Ibn Battuta – uses the mid-14th-century Moroccan world traveler as its “guide” for a tour of the Mongol Empire and the pan-Mediterranean worlds that saw new outbreaks of plague in this period. Drawing on the latest work in the paleosciences (genetics and bioarchaeology), the module presents a new approach to infectious disease history: using documentary sources to tell
what humans saw, and using scientific findings to show what people couldn’t see of the movements of the microscopic pathogen that causes plague, the bacterium Yersinia pestis.  

The result is a wider geography and a longer chronology of the pandemic. Materials provided (all for free) include readings for the students that use excerpts from primary sources to create a new narrative of the pandemic; in-class exercises to engage the students in creating their own interpretations of events; instructional materials (including teaching guides and PowerPoint slides); and suggestions for assessment exercises.

The student reading materials can be accessed and downloaded here:
https://www.history21.com/owit-module/the-black-death-the-medieval-plague-pandemic/.

Registration (again, free) is required to access the instructional materials for this and all the other modules available in the H21 platform:

https://www.history21.com/wp-login.php?action=register.

Contact Information
Monica H. Green, PhD
Independent Scholar
monica.h.green@gmail.com

"After four successful seasons, The Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast (MMA) will return for its fifth in 2026. Sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America, MMA is an anthology-style podcast that seeks to continue conversations and generate new avenues of inquiry related to the Middle Ages that emphasize the period’s diversity and the scholarship related to it. We highlight thoughtful reflections on culturally responsible approaches to the study of the Middle Ages (expansive beyond western Europe) and its afterlives."

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With the permission of the author, who is a member of TEAMS, the above link will take you to his recently-published article.  

Richard Utz is Senior Associate Dean for Strategic Initiatives and Professor of Medievalism Studies at Georgia Tech.

The officers of TEAMS are glad to showcase timely reading by our members and others.