As a feminist organization committed to intersectional and global justice throughout history reaching to the present, the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship joins other academic organizations in calling for an immediate and permanent bilateral ceasefire in the region. In doing so, we recommit ourselves to principles of academic freedom, supporting the voices of those who mourn Palestinian and Israeli lives and call for justice for the Palestinian people. Since October 7, 2023, when Hamas militants attacked and massacred 1,200 Israelis, Israel has killed over 20,000 Palestinians, at least 8,000 of whom are children and 6,000 of whom are women, and displaced more than 1.8 million Palestinians in Gaza. People in…
-
-
Call for Submissions: Best First Book of Feminist Scholarship Prize
We are happy to announce that the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship Book Committee is accepting submissions for the 2024 Best First Book of Feminist Scholarship on the Middle Ages. We are soliciting submissions of first monographs in any area of medieval studies. Nominated books should represent the best first monographs of feminist medieval scholarship published AND with a copyright date in 2022 or 2023. The prize (an award of $500), will be announced in the spring. Self-nominations are acceptable; presses may nominate more than one title. Please arrange for TWO copies (preferably hard copies) of each nominated book to be sent to SMFS President, Dr. Nicole Lopez-Jantzen, at the…
-
Janabai and her Disciples: Modes of Translation
A Research Blog from the 2022 Recipient of the Rising Star Award Nitya Pawar (Ashoka University, India) My research focuses on a medieval Marathi saint-poet Janabai (1258-1350 CE) through her poetry and reception. Janabai is one of the Marathi saint-poets who was active in the 13th – 14th century. Outside of Maharashtra, she has little to no presence despite her teacher/master, Saint Namdev (1270-1350 CE), having a huge pan-Indian public. Even in the context of Maharashtra, her story is primarily tied with that of Namdev, except in the grind-mill or stone-mill songs which are folksongs sung by primarily rural women of Maharashtra as they work on the grind-mill or perform…
-
SMFS Statement on the University of Waterloo Attack
The Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship stands in solidarity with the University of Waterloo students, faculty, and staff impacted by the horrific stabbing that took place in a gender studies classroom. This action shocks with its violence, antithetical to the classroom’s work of critical and communal reflection. As scholars of gender and sexuality across history, we know too well how questioning the boundaries of these categories frequently instigates violence from those driven by hatred and misogyny. We send our strongest support to the Waterloo community, and we encourage all feminists, academics or not, to call attention to and condemn this latest act of gendered and anti-intellectual violence. For those interested…
-
SMFS Advocacy Statement in Support of LGBTQ+ Rights
The Advisory Board of the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship joins the Medieval Academy of America (MAA) in condemning the wave of anti-LGBTQ+ legislation currently sweeping the United States. At the time of writing, a record-breaking number of 469 anti-LGBT+ bills have been introduced in state legislatures across the country, with 210 of these bills specifically targeting transgender and nonbinary people, more anti-LGBTQ+ bills than in each of the previous five years. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, members of Parliament are deliberating whether to halt the Gender Recognition Act Reform Bill legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament in December 2022, which permits adults to change their gender designation on their…
-
CFP: BAD FEELINGS IN THE GLOBAL MIDDLE AGES (MLA 4-7 January 2024)
Medieval Studies, as a discipline, often protests popular understandings of the medieval period as the ‘Dark Ages’. In an effort to counter this imagining of the Middle Ages, scholars have looked for medieval expressions of diversity and tolerance, as opposed to episodes of oppression, persecution, and violence (Gabriele and Perry 2021). Feminist medievalists in particular have adopted a ‘recuperative’ approach to the medieval past, seeking to recover women’s experiences and voices from the archive, in order to rectify enduring perceptions of the Middle Ages as a uniquely misogynistic period. Yet, recent critiques (Blurton and Johnson 2017; Rambaran-Olm 2022) have emphasized that in an effort to ‘recuperate’ the Middle Ages, medievalists…
-
CFP: Feminist Futures and Premodern Pasts: Global History in Perspective (AHA 2024: San Francisco, January 4-7)
We invite proposals for the SMFS-sponsored panel at 2024 the American Historical Association conference: Feminist Futures and Premodern Pasts: Global History in Perspective. The panel will cover topics from textbook authorship and source editing to course design and in-class strategies. Teaching nuanced history from a feminist perspective can face challenges from administrators and students, but also speak to students’ desire to understand the relevance of history to how they confront the future in an uncertain present. Strategies of feminist pedagogy include ways of helping students from diverse backgrounds engage with emotionally challenging content. The panel is designed to appeal to historians of all specialties with interests in feminist praxis and global history,…
-
2023 SMFS Best Article of Medieval Feminist Scholarship Prize: call for nominations and submissions
The members of the SMFS Advisory Board are pleased to announce the call for nominations and submissions for the 2023 SMFS Best Article of Medieval Feminist Scholarship Prize. Journal articles and chapters in edited collections published in calendar years 2021 and 2022 will be considered for this prize. Articles submitted for this prize will be assessed on both scholarly merit and relevance to the remit of SMFS. Topics are open, including issues regarding women, gender, trans studies, feminist approaches and theory, and intersectionality. Range of study must, however, focus on the medieval period (ca. 500 to 1500). The prize is US $300.00. Deadline for submissions is 30th January 2023. Announcement of the prize winner will occur on 15th March…
-
Joint Statement from the U.K. Gender and Medieval Studies Group (GMS) and the International U.S.-based Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS) on the Threatened Job Losses at Birkbeck
6th December 2022 Dear Professor David Latchman, Professor Matt Innes, and Sir Andrew Cahn, We write on joint behalf of the Gender and Medieval Studies Group (GMS) and the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship (SMFS), organisations which represent the study of medieval English Literature, and medieval studies more broadly, in the UK, the US, and globally. We wish to strongly express our concern at the news of the devastating cuts proposed for The Department of English, Theatre & Creative Writing at Birkbeck. Given the department’s recent success in the 2021 Research Excellence Framework, a success which has been much lauded in the global arena, your proposal to render 50% of…
-
SMFS 2023 Elections
It is time to begin the process of our annual elections to the Advisory Board of the Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship. Here is a summary of elections-related activity occurring this year: Advisory Board members concluding terms of service in 2022: Michelle Armstrong-Partida Jill Hamilton Clements Dana Oswald Alexandra Verini Graduate Student Representative concluding term of service in 2022: Kersti Francis The executive team, on behalf of the Advisory Board and society membership, wishes to express our gratitude to these departing members for your efforts in support of our organization’s many initiatives over the past several years. Thank you to all of you! 2023 Elections The SMFS Advisory Board is…