Michigan’s Medieval and Early Modern Studies program brings together scholars and students across disciplines and regions to expand our understanding of the premodern world and bring forward new questions and ways of thinking about earlier cultures and spaces, even those that have previously gone unexamined. MEMS also participates in and helps promote the programming of related events and workshops across the U-M campus.
Gifts to MEMS allow us to pursue new opportunities as well as offer longstanding programs to all MEMS students, faculty, and the public. Gifts to these funds help support current programming:
The MEMS Lecture Series features invited scholars who present on topics that span the globe and engage the latest problems in their fields.
Founded in 1979, the monthly Premodern Colloquium gives local faculty and advanced graduate students, as well as invited speakers, the opportunity to discuss work in progress with a supportive and engaged community of peers.
The Medieval Lunch focuses on graduate student work, or sometimes pairs grad students and faculty presenters, to workshop papers and problems in a casual setting. These informal lunches provide a sneak preview of conversations in our fields going forward.
MEMS has long supported summer research and acted as LSA’s liaison for research, symposia, and critical skills training in languages and digital humanities at the Newberry Library in Chicago.
MEMS Lectures bring in scholars from otherwise disparate fields and regions to broaden and refresh our work and thinking. In 2024-2025, our MEMS Lecture Series hosted three in-person events. In September, Ittai Weinryb (Bard Graduate Center) explored thirteenth-century trading networks of central Europe and beyond in “The Body of the Merchant: Art and Experience in the Commercial Revolution.” Linda Rui Feng (University of Toronto) joined us in February to introduce us to the culture of aromatics in medieval China in “The Language of Olfactory Experience in Prose Narratives from 9th and 10th- Century China.” Rounding out the series in late March, Allison Bigelow (University of Virginia) interrogated the early modern colonial legal workings in Potosí (Bolivia) in “Sacred and Profane: Andean Guacas and Colonial Extractions, 1569-1636.” These lectures explored the transmission, curation, and manipulation of knowledge across far-flung realms, inviting us to reimagine the medieval and early modern worlds in a context of shifting global networks.
This 45th year of the Premodern Colloquium (PMC) has been a resounding success!The fall semester of 2024 saw some big changes for the Premodern Colloquium (PMC). Inspired by input from faculty and students and driven by a desire to make attendance easier for all, our meetings shifted from Sunday afternoons (when they had long been held) to a rotating weekday time slot. These times coincided with meetings of the MEMS graduate proseminar, and guest scholars were invited to share their work with the PMC community based on its relationship to the theme of course, which explored different approaches to object theory in studies of the premodern world. We were grateful to be joined by two innovative thinkers who provided samples of recently published work to discuss. The first, Amanda Wunder (Art History, CUNY) shared a chapter from her book on the premier court tailor in 17th-century Madrid, which allowed us all to ponder the methodological challenges of reconstructing objects long since lost to time from the archival record. Conversations with our second guest, Byron Hamann, revolved around another important aspect of object theory—that of agency—in relation to a sixteenth-century codex produced by central Mexican artists in the midst of the violent cultural upheaval incited by the arrival of Spanish forces to the region beginning in 1519. The fascinating discussions that unfolded thanks to our generous guests and attendees continued into the winter semester, despite the conclusion of the proseminar. A final PMC meeting held in April centered on the discussion of a chapter draft from an exciting new book-length project by Adam Jasienski (Art History, SMU), who helped continue our collective investigation of object theory by way of data collected from records of Spanish inquisitorial trials. We wholeheartedly thank all participants-guests and Wolverines alike-for a fantastic year of discussion, and look forward to new iterations of the Premodern Colloquium in the future.
- Professor Brendan McMahon (History of Art), Program Organizer for The Premodern Colloquium
The Forum on Research in Medieval Studies (FoRMS) had a successful academic year. The Fall 2023 term began with an event at Haymaker Public House for our Book Club Presentations. This gave members of FoRMS an informal social outlet to discuss the texts they purchased and read over the summer using the funds allocated to them by FoRMS from the previous year. We dispersed funds for our 2024-2025 Book Club Presentations to FoRMS members at the end of the Spring 2024 term.
Our opening Book Club event was followed by a series of dynamic Medieval Lunches, where members of our academic community presented and workshopped their conference papers and research. Our colleague in History of Art, Julia Laplaca, guest hosted an event for us in UMMA where she gave a teaching demonstration and encouraged feedback regarding the Medieval and Early Modern exhibit at the museum. This was an engaging and informative pedagogical exercise that enabled FoRMS members not only to learn to teach with material objects, but it enabled members to engage directly with the University’s Medieval and Early Modern resources. Other presenters throughout the year included Katherine Tapia (RLL), Julia Laplaca (Hist. of Art), Madeline Fox (ELL), Adam Grant (RLL), Geneva Higginson (Hist. of Art), Hannah Tweet (History), and Allison Grenda (Hist. of Art). Each presentation welcomed a full and attentive audience of graduate students and faculty alike, and each ended in a lively Q&A.
FoRMS looks forward to another successful year during the Fall 2024 and Winter 2025 terms!
– Madeline Fox (English Language and Literature) & Sam Winnikow (History), Coordinators of the Medieval Lunch for the Forum on Research in Medieval Studies (ForMS), 2023-24
