the ballad of the lone medievalist Before you start to read this book, take this moment to think about making a donation to punctum books, an independent non-profit press, @ https://punctumbooks.com/support/ If you’re reading the e-book, you can click on the image below to go directly to our donations site. Any amount, no matter the size, is appreciated and will help us to keep our ship of fools afloat. Contri- butions from dedicated readers will also help us to keep our commons open and to cultivate new work that can’t find a welcoming port elsewhere. Our ad- venture is not possible without your support. Vive la open-access. Fig . 1. Hieronymus Bosch, Ship of Fools (1490–1500) the ballad of the lone medievalist. Copyright © 2018 by editors and au- thors. This work carries a Creative Commons BY-NC-SA 4.0 International li- cense, which means that you are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and you may also remix, transform and build upon the material, as long as you clearly attribute the work to the authors (but not in a way that suggests the authors or punctum books endorses you and your work), you do not use this work for commercial gain in any form whatsoever, and that for any remixing and transformation, you distribute your rebuild under the same license. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/ First published in 2018 by punctum books, Earth, Milky Way. https://punctumbooks.com ISBN-13: 978-1-947447-54-7 (print) ISBN-13: 978-1-947447-55-4 (ePDF) lccn: 2018940292 Library of Congress Cataloging Data is available from the Library of Congress Book design: Vincent W.J. van Gerven Oei The Ba lad Medievalist Edited by Kisha G. Tracy & John P. Sexton Contents Who Was That Masked Monk? 13 John P. Sexton and Kisha G. Tracy The Lone Medievalist: Casting the Net 17 Sarah Barott and Rachel Munson The Lone Medievalist as Teacher Breaking Free of the Cloistered Classroom Not So Lonesome Anymore: Bridging the Disciplines through Pedagogy 31 Peter Burkholder Keeping It Old-School on the New Faculty Majority 51 Geoffrey B. Elliott Interdisciplinary/Team Teaching and the Lone Medievalist 65 Natalie Grinnell And Gladly Wolde He Teche: The Medievalist and the History of the English Language Course 71 Robert Kellerman I Know! Let’s Put on a Show! 79 Robert Stauffer Perpetual Invention and Performance-Based Research: The Case of The Ballad of Robin Hood and the Potter 95 Carolyn Coulson What’s the Message?: Building Community through Tolkien’s Beowulf 109 Holly M. Wendt Why Read That ?: Selling the Middle Ages 119 Diane Cady A Trip to England: Discovering the Ties between Medievalism and Pop Culture 137 Danielle Girard, Sarah Huff, Justine Marsella, Alicia Protze, Ab- bie Rosen, Jacki Teague The Lone Medievalist as Scholar: Opus Clamantis in Deserto From the Monk’s Cell to the Professor’s Office 145 Kisha G. Tracy Embracing the Medievalist Margin 161 Alicia Spencer-Hall The Medievalist’s Soliloquy: Struggles and Advice for Lone Medievalists 169 Tiffany A. Ziegler Reflections of an Embarrassed Medievalist 177 Michael Elam The Unicorn Learns Accountability 189 Misty Urban How to Stop Being a Lonely Medievalist 199 M. Wendy Hennequin Blended Medievalist Careers: Staying Optimistic While Balancing Passion and Job Market Realities 205 Timothy R.W. Jordan and Aubri Anne McVey A Study of the Unexpected: The Advantages of Being the “Lone Medievalist” 221 Nikolas O. Hoel Saga Thing and the Benefits of Podcasting the Medieval 227 Andrew M. Pfrenger The Lone Medievalist at Work: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Job Building Your Own Villa 249 Jane Chance Twice Marginal and Twice Invisible: On Being the Lone Medievalist Twice in One State 259 Michelle M. Sauer Pushing Boundaries: Making the Medieval Relevant through Public History and Engagement On and Off Campus 267 Amber Handy Brought to You by Your Friendly Campus Medievalist 281 Lee Templeton Down with Dante and Chaucer? Navigating a Great Books Curriculum as a Medievalist 289 Sarah Harlan-Haughey Of sondry folk : What I Learned After My First Year as the Lone Medievalist on Campus 305 Ann M. Martinez The Collaborative Medievalist 311 Courtney Rydel Make Yourself At Home 319 John P. Sexton This Eremitic Life Notes from the North 341 Laura Saetveit Miles Being a Medievalist in an A-medieval Country and in a Region Overcrowded with Medievality: Two Stories from Brasil and the Western Balkans 355 Ardian Muhaj Is the Academic Medievalist Alone? 361 Kouky J. Fianu A Philosopher’s Approach to Being a Lone Medievalist 365 Pilar Herráiz Oliva A Lone Medievalist on the Island 369 Christine E. Kozikowski Contributors 373 13 introduction Who Was That Masked Monk? John P. Sexton, Bridgewater State University Kisha G. Tracy, Fitchburg State University Hi. Are you a Lone Medievalist? This volume is a sequel, of sorts, to an ongoing series of round tables at the International Congress on Medieval Stud- ies held at Western Michigan University, beginning in 2015. The impetus for those sessions, and for this book, is the sense of isolation many medieval scholars feel in their professional lives. Often the only scholar of the period in their departments, their universities, or their surrounding area, medievalists can find it challenging to advocate for their work and field. The problem is only more pronounced for the medievalist in an adjunct teach- ing position or without an institutional position at all. When we work alone among colleagues, teach mostly (or entirely) outside our specializations, and compete with “more easily” understood or well-funded research, it is easy to feel disconnected from the larger discipline of medieval studies. Our scholarly production slows or ceases. Our language skills atrophy. Our knowledge os- sifies. Soon, even attending a conference of fellow medievalists can feel isolating. Surrounded by scholars with greater institu- tional support, lower teaching loads, or more robust research agendas, we may feel alienated from the field we love — the work to which we’ve dedicated our careers. 14 the ballad of the lone medievalist The Lone Medievalist exists as a partial antidote to the prob- lem of professional isolation. The nature of medieval studies has always been collaborative — paleographers, editors, trans- lators, archeologists, preservationists, librarians, scholars, and students may all play a part in the creation of a single so-called “monograph.” Yet our physical distance from one another (and the preferences of a professional system that privileges the indi- vidual scholar) tends to de-emphasize the work of the medieval collective. Our other duties, especially teaching and institution- al service, have traditionally been even less connected to that collaborative spirit. Fortunately, the advent of the internet age, and with it, social media, digital reproductions, remote-confer- encing, and long-distance collaboration have all improved the lot of the solitary scholar. Knowing and working with our fel- lows has never been easier, and with the right encouragement can result in remarkable new directions for the field of medieval studies as a whole. Our organization builds on those new connective conduits. The goal of the Lone Medievalist sessions was and is to encour- age far-flung and isolated medievalists of all stripes to share their knowledge, experiences, and strategies for successfully pursuing and sharing their work. We hope to build a platform for medievalists to provide support to one another. The Lone Medievalist isn’t focused exclusively on scholarship, on teach- ing, on institutional life, or on the pursuit of new learning — it’s focused on all of them. We privilege all aspects of the profes- sional and intellectual life of medievalists. Our experience in this new era is, we hope, surprisingly akin to the monastic vocation itself. The medieval monks, whose sim- ple anonymity inspired the look of our organizational mascot and whose cloistered lives were a combination of eremitic and col- lective experience, knew that a supporting institution and like- minded colleagues provided the energy that made many things possible that would be exhausting, lonely, or even impossible for a single individual. Though our profession often requires that we work in disciplinary isolation, we are more connected than our predecessors could have imagined. In our work, and in our intel- 15 who was that masked monk? lectual lives, we have the chance to build a new kind of cloister for ourselves — one that encompasses the entire world. A Lone Medievalist need no longer be an isolated medievalist. The idea for this volume grew out of our very first Interna- tional Congress round table. It was clear then that Lone Me- dievalists had much to say and much to offer each other. We all have our own stories and our own strategies for managing our “lone” status. We thought that a collection of these stories would be useful and unique — if not also cathartic for the con- tributors and the readers — and thus this volume was born. We were pleased and surprised by the response to the original call for submissions. It seemed that the topic was of great interest to many, and both those who volunteered to contribute as well as others have expressed the desire to read about such experiences. We were also pleased by the range of responses we received, the varying types of emphases that contributors identified in their contributions. In the end, these responses have naturally organized themselves into four sections. The Lone Medievalist as Teacher: Breaking Free of the Cloistered Classroom In this section, Lone Medievalists discuss how to approach the classroom, from turning students into colleagues to bringing the medieval into non-medieval courses. Medievalists are tradi- tionally innovative teachers, and Lone Medievalists, perhaps by necessity, even more so. The Lone Medievalist as Scholar: Opus Clamantis in Deserto A challenge often faced by Lone Medievalists is how to find the time and the resources to maintain scholarship. While scholar- ship may not always follow the traditional paths that we became used to in graduate school, we can be creative in using our time and resources wisely — and maybe even forge new paths in the meantime. 16 the ballad of the lone medievalist The Lone Medievalist at Work: Or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Job The professional reality is that many of us are without colleagues who share our areas of expertise and interest. In most cases, a department will hire only a single medieval specialist — and may be hard-pressed to convince administrations or hiring commit- tees to approve even that one. These essays provide suggestions and ideas for professional engagement, curriculum planning, and reappointment and tenure cases as the Lone Medievalist in a department or institution. This Eremitic Life Think being the only medievalist in your department is diffi- cult? What about being the only one in a whole country? In this section, we get glimpses into the lives of Lone Medievalists on a global scale. When we started organizing this collection, we were ada- mant that it would not be a forum simply for bewailing the state of medieval studies in small institutions. While we all recognize and acknowledge the challenges in being Lone Medievalists, these essays are deliberately crafted to offer strategies, camara- derie, advice, and alternatives. We hope readers find it forward- thinking and revitalizing as well as helpful to those of us in these positions. 17 The Lone Medievalist: Casting the Net Sarah Barott & Rachel Munson, The Lone Medievalist Staff When we first attended the International Congress for Medi- eval Studies in 2013, we had just begun to dip our toes into the expansive world of Medieval Studies. When we returned home we were so inspired that we both began extensively studying the Middle Ages and founded the Bemidji State University Medi- eval Club. Within months we had a solid community of medi- evalists and we felt at home. In 2015 at the 50th Annual Interna- tional Congress for Medieval Studies, we attended the “Ballad of the Lone Medievalist” panel hosted by Dr. Kisha Tracy of Fitchburg State University and Dr. John Sexton of Bridgewater State University. We were astonished by how many medievalists felt alone at their universities. Didn’t everyone have a colleague who studied medieval scholarship on their campus? The sur- prising answer was no. It was our understanding that the Lone Medievalist project, founded by Dr. Tracy and Dr. Sexton, began with the intent of creating a series of panels and publications to connect medievalists from around the world. We recognized the Lone Medievalist project’s need for a more substantial commu- nity outside of the short amount of time allotted them at con- ferences. We thought a good basis would be to create a virtual community that emulated what we felt on our home campus. 18 the ballad of the lone medievalist Sarah then suggested an online hub which would allow medi- eval scholars to join together, share in discussion, trade syllabi, and connect for conferences. The next thing we knew we were having lunch with Dr. Tracy and Dr. Sexton and were exploring the idea further. We left our meeting with the go-ahead to get a website up and running for The Lone Medievalist. The four of us began having weekly digital meetings to estab- lish who was emailing whom, what projects we wanted to begin, and how we would create and edit our site. Before launching the website, a network of support was needed. We had compiled an extensive list of medievalist contacts and called upon all of them for help. One of the things that always fascinated us about the medieval conference system is the willingness to help burgeon- ing scholars. Sarah Barott on Website Development Our main goals for the website are collaboration, community, and scholarship. We wanted to create a resource for everyone to use and a way to get in touch with scholars from other schools. However, forming a community created a couple problems that we did not foresee. The first large problem we ran into was deciding what tone to set for the website. We wanted to gear everything toward the Lone Medievalist, but we also wanted to make sure that we could get in touch with people from larger research universities to help recreate the collective that exists within these institutions at smaller universities. The website needed to be scholarly and have information readily-available, but also create the kind of engag- ing academic experience people have come to expect from their media. We wanted to include the jokes that no one else seemed to get and the open, helpful sense of comradery that we found at Kalamazoo. The Lone Medievalist Online has been designed to be informal and welcoming, but professional and scholarly. Once we set the tone, we had to decide what type of website to use. After various suggestions ranging from a blog to a wiki, we settled on Wix. Wix.com is a program that helps the less- 19 the lone medievalist than tech savvy design websites. Wix is creator-friendly, easy to set-up and to maintain. There are applications available for pur- chase, but a problem with Wix is that it’s difficult to get people to use said applications. For instance our discussion board “Mutt” takes people away from the website and forces them to register on a different page. We feel that this has deterred many people from using our discussion board, which is unfortunate because we envisioned it being such a wonderful tool. Another app that caused a problem on the site was the syllabi drop box. We designed this area of the site for scholars to place any syllabi they felt comfortable sharing. The first app that we used on Wix was not helpful, in that it would only show one syl- labi at a time. We wanted a whole bank of syllabi for people to draw from, not just one highlighted syllabus. We thought about creating a Dropbox, but decided to use Google Drive instead. This has been incredibly helpful because, when people send syl- labi to the Lone Medievalist, we can click once and share it on the site. So far we’ve received syllabi from a diverse group of scholars. Now that this issue has been fixed, the Google Drive works well for its purposes. Many discussions revolved around what type of content to add to the site. Because the site is run by a small group of vol- unteers (five to be exact), we rely on suggestions from others. So far getting people involved on the actual website has been difficult. Our social media stream, an area on our homepage that publishes our Facebook and Twitter feeds, has almost taken the place of a chat room. Initially, we had hoped that the site would provide a sense of community that took place directly at thelonemedievalist.com and not exclusively on social media. As things stand, The Lone Medievalist Online seems to be working as more of a newsletter and announcements of what we do. One feature we were excited about was the Google Map ap- plication. We placed a comment bar next to the Google Map in hopes that our viewers (currently 188 1 ) would place unique and unexpected resources on the map. We wanted larger libraries, 1 As of July 2016.