The Medieval Academy of America (spelled Mediaeval until 1980) is the largest organization in the United States promoting excellence in the field of medieval studies. It was founded in 1925 and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The academy publishes the quarterly journal Speculum, and awards prizes, grants, and fellowships such as the Haskins Medal, which is named for Charles Homer Haskins, one of the founders of the Medieval Academy and its second president.
The Medieval Academy supports research, publication, and teaching in medieval art, archaeology, history, law, literature, music, philosophy, religion, science, social and economic institutions, and all other aspects of the Middle Ages.
Membership is open to all persons interested in the Middle Ages. The Academy holds an annual meeting each spring. The next meeting will take place in Knoxville, TN, hosted by the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the University of Tennessee Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, and the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium, 4-6 April 2013. The Academy also has a Fellowship class for exceptional scholars in the field of medieval history. This includes: Fellows, Corresponding Fellows and Emeriti Fellows.
The current president of the Medieval Academy is Maryanne Kowaleski of Fordham University, and Eileen Gardiner and Ronald G. Musto are the current Executive Directors and Editors of Speculum.
Famous quotes containing the words medieval, academy and/or america:
“Our medieval historians who prefer to rely as much as possible on official documents because the chronicles are unreliable, fall thereby into an occasionally dangerous error. The documents tell us little about the difference in tone which separates us from those times; they let us forget the fervent pathos of medieval life.”
—Johan Huizinga (1872–1945)
“I realized early on that the academy and the literary world alike—and I don’t think there really is a distinction between the two—are always dominated by fools, knaves, charlatans and bureaucrats. And that being the case, any human being, male or female, of whatever status, who has a voice of her or his own, is not going to be liked.”
—Harold Bloom (b. 1930)
“I have, indeed, even omitted facts, which, on account of their singularity, must in the eyes of some have appeared to border on the marvelous. But in the forests of South America such extraordinary realities are to be found, that there is assuredly no need to have recourse to fiction or the least exaggeration.”
—J.G. (John Gabriel)