Albrecht Classen wins Arizona Professor of the Year

Albrecht Classen almost cried when he learned he won the 2012 Professor of the Year award for the state of Arizona, but the German-born German Studies professor is no stranger to recognition for his work.

Awards line the walls of Classen’s office and help serve as a testament to the appreciation for his work and teaching ability. This week, Classen will receive three additional honors to add to the wall.

On Wednesday, Classen will be inducted as honorary member of the Golden Key International Honour Society. Later this week, he’ll also receive an award known as “Friend of German” from the American Association of Teachers of German.

The Friend of German award “recognizes outstanding support for and promotion of German and the study of German at the local, regional, or national level,” according to the association’s website.

Probably most significant is the fact that this week Classen will receive an award for U.S. Professor of the Year for 2012 in Arizona from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. When he found out he won, he said he felt moved.

Click here to read this article from the Daily Wildcat

See also Professor Classen speaking on Trobairitz Women Poets from Early Twelfth-Century Southern France

If you love history, read on

Lovers of great history books, awake! Next week, Canada’s Cundill Prize, the richest non-fiction prize in the world ($75,000 to the winner), will announce its list of six books for the 2012 award.

 Someone in a position to have the list is going to publish it here, as a help to those who love history or to those who just like a large read on big subjects.

 A word about the prize. It was established in 2008 by Peter Cundill, a McGill University graduate who set aside money for his alma mater to give this prize in history (he died in January, 2011). The university selects jurors from different countries, usually the United States, Britain and Canada, because the prize goes to the best book written in, or translated into, English in the wide field of history. The general criteria for the shortlisted books and, of course, the eventual winner: a book whose author wears great learning lightly.

Click here to read this article from The Globe and Mail

Click here to visit the Cundill Prize website

Margot Fassler wins 2012 Otto Gründler Book Prize

Margot Fassler, Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame, was awarded the 2012 Otto Gründler Book Prize for her book The Virgin of Chartres: Making History Through Liturgy and the Arts.

The prize was announced on Friday at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University. Her book examines the history of the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Chartres, France, drawing on local histories, letters, obituaries, chants, liturgical sources, and reports of miracles to explore the cult of the Virgin of Chartres and its development in the 11th and 12th centuries. The book explores how the past was made in the central Middle Ages and argues for an understanding of the liturgical framework of time.

“It was especially meaningful to win this prestigious award in 2012,” Fassler says, “because I am the third Notre Dame faculty member in a row to win, joining my colleagues John Van Engen and Thomas Noble— all three of us fellows of Notre Dame’s Medieval Institute.”

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Mafia, Vesuvius and Roman heritage

The European Heritage Prize 2011 is awarded an archaeologist and an Italian mayor, who have shown how discoveries from the distant past can help create alternatives to a mafia-run economy.

The European Association of Archaeologists (EAA) has awarded its thirteenth Heritage Prize to Dr. Girolamo Ferdinando de Simone of St Johns College, University of Oxford, and Avvocato Francesco Pinto, Mayor of Pollena Trocchia, in recognition of their combined efforts that have set an important example for the integration of scholarly, and societal achievements with good heritage management under particularly demanding circumstances.

On the Northern slopes of Vesuvius people have not been used to much attention around their history and culture. Tourists have crowded elsewhere at more illustrious locations in the Campania region such as Napoli, Baiae, Pompeii and Herculaneum. The inhabitants themselves used not to think much of their own local past, not known for any of the Roman splendour that has made its neighbours world famous.

Click here to read this article from the Norwegian Institute for Cultural Heritage Research

Exemplaria receives the Phoenix Award for most improved journal

Exemplaria, an academic journal dedicated to medieval and Renaissance studies from Maney Publishing, has received the 2011 Phoenix Award for Significant Editorial Achievement from the Council of Editors of Learned Journals (CELJ).

The CELJ is an organisation made up of editors of scholarly journals covering a range of subjects, and in 1987 it established the Phoenix Award to give recognition to the most improved journal, regardless of its state at the time renovations began.

Judges noted “significant development for this already excellent journal” over the past three years.

The quarterly journal provides a forum for those interested in medieval and Renaissance studies, with an expansive scope covering European literature; literary theory; film; rhetoric; historicism; and old and Middle English.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Chaucerian professor makes a pilgrimage to Romania

University of Colorado's Thomas Napierkowski cuts an impressive figure that is every inch an English professor. He is tall and thin, completely bald, and sports a rather impressive mustache. He even jokes about his age, claiming that he had conversations with poet Geoffrey Chaucer 500 years ago.

Napierkowski was accepted as a Fulbright Specialist in December. According to the U.S. State Department, the Fulbright Specialist program "sends U.S. faculty and professionals to serve as expert consultants on curriculum, faculty development, institutional planning, and related subjects at overseas academic institutions for a period of two to six weeks."

These appointments are limited. A Specialist is only allowed two in his career. Napierkowski said, "If you teach for 50 years, you can only have two appointments." He is in his first five-year appointment.

This is not simply a spur-of-the-moment honor, though. Napierkowski said, "It's sort of an interesting – and arduous – process." The process begins with an application with multiple essays. Those essays are peer-reviewed by other Fulbright Scholars, and even if you pass that review, a final board has to pass you as well. Once a scholar is on the Specialist list, their name and dossier are available to foreign universities for assistance in their American literature programs.

Click here to read this article from The Scribe

President Obama to award National Humanities Medal to medievalist

UCLA’s Teofilo F. Ruiz, an internationally recognized historian whose work focuses on medieval Spain and Europe, will be awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama today.

Ruiz, who is among nine intellectuals nationwide selected this year for the prestigious honor, will receive the medal at a White House ceremony, after delivering brief remarks about his work at the headquarters of the National Endowment for the Humanities. A reception with the president and first lady will follow the ceremony.

The National Humanities Medal, inaugurated by the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1996, honors individuals or groups whose work has deepened the nation’s understanding of the humanities, broadened the engagement of American citizens with the humanities, or helped preserve and expand access to important resources in the humanities. Previous medalists have included Nobel Prize–winning author Toni Morrison, novelist John Updike, Nobel Peace Prize laureate and author Elie Wiesel, and filmmaker Steven Spielberg.


Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures wins 2011 National Jewish Book Award

A University of Pennsylvania professor has been recognized by the Jewish Book Council for her work this past year.

Last Monday, Talya Fishman was awarded a 2011 National Jewish Book Award for her book Becoming the People of the Talmud: Oral Torah as Written Tradition in Medieval Jewish Cultures.

“I feel numbed with honor,” Fishman said when she found out about the award. “I am enormously gratified and mostly feel very lucky.”

For her work, Fishman received the Nahum M. Sarna Memorial Award, which is part of the annual award program’s scholarship category. This award had special significance for Fishman, who knew Sarna personally.

“Nahum Sarna was a really fine Bible scholar known for the breadth and accuracy of his scholarship,” Fishman said. “It is a high bar to be a scholar of his caliber and that makes this award especially meaningful.”

Fishman’s book attempts to solve the riddle of how the Talmud — a body of writing that preserves Jewish tradition and establishes guidelines on how to live life in Jewish society — shifted in meaning when it changed from oral transmission to written presentation. Researching and writing the book took Fishman 11 years.

Click here to read this article from the Daily Pennsylvanian


Click here to visit the Jewish Book Council website

Tithe Barn restoration wins conservation prize

A medieval barn in Nailsea, which has undergone a £1.2 million refurbishment, has won a top conservation award. The Tithe Barn has won the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA) People's Choice award.

RIBA asked people across the South West to vote for their favourite new building project, with the 15th century Tithe Barn beating the competition to take the main prize.

The competition is in its fourth year and the shortlist represented a broad selection of publicly accessible buildings across the South West.

RIBA South West Town And Country Design Awards look at the impact of new and converted built environment projects in both rural and urban settings.

Click here to read this article from This is Bristol

Lorraine Stock awarded the Bonnie Wheeler Summer Fellowship

From Camelot to Sherwood Forest, Lorraine Stock has taken students on a host of literary adventures. Now, the University of Houston associate professor of English will venture into new research territories with the aid of the Bonnie Wheeler Summer Research Fellowship.

Medieval expert Stock is the inaugural recipient of this award. Named for the noted scholar Wheeler, this fellowship honors female medievalists and provides support for research projects conducted between June 1 and December 31.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

John Davey Research Grant for Medieval Studies

When it comes to history, especially medieval history, the awards and accolades are usually reserved for the professional scholar – those with multiple degrees of higher learning and long lists of academic titles and initials after their name. And deservedly so. Without their dedication and scholarship, much of what we know about history would have been lost to time. But it is often the local historian who provides just as valuable a contribution to unlocking the secrets of the past. Giving selflessly of their time and talents, their work has helped to foster a better understanding of the events and people who came before us. And this is just who The Richard III Foundation, Inc. is seeking to recognize with their new program, The John Davey Research Grant for Medieval Studies.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Medievalist awarded grant to research Mirror to Devout People

Paul Patterson, assistant professor of English at St.Joseph University, has been awarded $8,200 to pursue his personal project, an edition of the Mirror to Devout People.

The Mirror to Devout People, also known as the Speculum devotorum, was written by a monk at the Carthusian monastery of Sheen, in Surrey, England, for a sister of the Bridgettine Syon Abbey in Isleworth, Middlesex. It tells the story of Christ’s life, with an emphasis on the Passion, and was written at a time when the vernacular Bible was banned. Over the past several years, Patterson has examined a number of late-14th and early-15th century texts, and plans to complete a new edition of the Mirror to Devout People for the Early English Text Society this summer. Patterson will conduct his research at the Cambridge University Library, which holds one of the original manuscripts of the text. Both the Huntington Library and British Academy Fellowship for study in the United Kingdom and the NEH summer stipend will support the completion of this project.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Dr. Tomás Ó Carragáin wins award for Irish Medieval Studies

Dr. Tomás Ó Carragáin, a lecturer at University College Cork, has been awarded the inaugural Four Courts Press Michael Adams Prize in Irish Medieval Studies for his essay “The Architectural Setting of the Mass in Early-medieval Ireland.”

This prize was awarded last week at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University. It is given for the best peer-reviewed essay/article on Irish Medieval Studies published in a book or journal during the 2006–2010.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Professor selected for Guggenheim

A professor of English and human sciences was selected as a prestigious Guggenheim Fellow, one of 180 selected this year.

The competition, in its 87th year running, grants fellowships to artists, scientists and scholars with demonstrated accomplishments in their fields. Jeffrey Cohen was selected from a pool of 3,000 in 2011.

Cohen is the director of the Institute for Medieval and Early Modern Studies within the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences. He was chosen as a humanities and medieval literature fellow.

Click here to read this article from The GW Hatchet

Matthew Boyd Goldie awarded fellowship to study medieval geography

Dr. Matthew Boyd Goldie has been awarded a McColl Research Fellowship from the American Geographical Society Library at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. There, he will explore how the British Isles were considered in contrast to other landmasses in the 13th through 15th centuries, as well as the perceived effects of their insularity on their civilizations and cultures.

After traveling from his native New Zealand to Brooklyn College for a Master of Fine Arts, Dr. Matthew Boyd Goldie was already well acquainted with the geography of the earth – at least by modern standards.

Now that has been awarded a McColl Research Fellowship from the American Geographical Society Library at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, Goldie intends to deepen his familiarity with the earth’s geography as it was understood by his scholarly ancestors from the Middle Ages. The library, which contains North America’s foremost geography and map collections – some 500,000 maps of all types covering the globe on a range of scales – will provide the ideal setting for the subject of Goldie’s latest research: How were the British Isles thought of in contrast to other landmasses in the 13th through 15th centuries? And what were the perceived effects of their insularity on their civilizations and cultures?

Click here to read this article from Rider University

Norfolk Graffiti project wins national award

A local community archaeology project aimed at discovering and recording examples of medieval graffiti has won a prestigious national award. The Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Survey, which marks its first anniversary this month, was selected as joint winner in the ‘Awards for the Presentation of Heritage Research 2011’ at a ceremony held at the British Museum on Friday. These annual awards, sponsored by English Heritage, aim to encourage researchers to present their research on British and Irish archaeology, historic buildings and heritage conservation, to the wider public.

The Norfolk Medieval Graffiti Project began in January 2010 with the aim of carrying out the first large scale study of surviving medieval graffiti inscriptions in Norfolk churches. Although the project has so far only managed to survey about 50 of the counties 650+ medieval churches the results have been a surprise to all involved. “When we began the project”, stated project director Matthew Champion, “we suspected that medieval graffiti inscriptions were far more common than previously thought. However, even we were surprised by the scale of the findings. To date, having surveyed only 50 churches, we have discovered significant medieval graffiti in over 30”.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

New Prize for Irish Medieval Studies

Scholars working on medieval history in Ireland can now compete for the best peer-reviewed essay/article in their field. Four Courts Press and the American Society of Irish Medieval Studies have launched the inaugural Four Courts Press Michael Adams Prize in Irish Medieval Studies.

This prize, which will be presented at the 46th International Congress on Medieval Studies, will be awarded for the best peer-reviewed essay/article on Irish Medieval Studies published in a book or journal during the previous calendar year. For the first year’s prize, which will be awarded in May 2011, the prize will be awarded for the best peer-reviewed essay/article published in a book or journal during the period 2006–2010. It is only open to members of the American Society of Irish Medieval Studies (ASIMS) and entries must be submitted by February 25th.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

Undergrad thesis: ‘Feathered Funerals: Birds in Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Rites’ wins award

Ruth Nugent of the University of Chester has been awarded The Society for Medieval Archaeology’s John Hurst Prize for the Best Undergraduate Dissertation, 2010, for her work Feathered Funerals: Birds in Early Anglo-Saxon Burial Rites.

The prestigious annual award is made to the undergraduate dissertation that makes the most original contribution to medieval archaeology (from AD 400 to 1600) and Ruth is ‘surprised and delighted’ to have been selected from a whole range of submissions from the UK and Ireland.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net

On-Site Archaeology shorlisted for Rescue Dig Of The Year award

York archaeologists have been shortlisted for an award after unearthing a mass grave of Cromwell’s soldiers in Fishergate.

The mass grave from the Siege of York in 1644 at the former medieval All Saints’ Church site at the junction of Kent Street and Fawcett Street is one of five finds nominated for magazine Current Archaeology’s Rescue Dig Of The Year in its Archaeology Awards.

The award is for archaeological survey and excavation carried out in areas revealed or threatened by development, or preventative measures taken on a previously unexcavated site.

Click here to read this article from The York Press

Click here to visit the Current Archaeology Awards website

Book – Richard Rolle and His Readers: Defining the Literary in the Fifteenth Century – receives fellowship

Katherine Zieman, an assistant professor of English at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded a National Humanities Center Fellowship for work on her next book, “Richard Rolle and His Readers: Defining the Literary in the Fifteenth Century.” She is one of just 36 fellows selected to spend the 2010-11 academic year working at the North Carolina-based center.

“My year at the center allows me to devote my full attention to this project—and offers the opportunity to converse with other scholars in the humanities in different periods and disciplines who share my interests,” Zieman says.

Click here to read this article from Medievalists.net