News

The Association for Spanish and Portuguese Historical Studies solicits submissions for the annual Charles Julian Bishko Memorial Prize for the best article published in 2014 or 2015 in the field of medieval Iberian history by a North American scholar. Initiated in 2003, the Bishko Prize honors Professor Charles Julian Bishko, the distinguished historian of medieval Iberia who taught for 39 years at the University of Virginia. This year's prize, which carries an honorarium of $250, will be announced at the 2016 annual meeting of ASPHS in San Diego, California. Articles may be written in Castilian, English, Catalan, Galician, Portuguese or French. Authors must be current members of the ASPHS. Authors should submit one copy of the article and a short (2-page) CV in PDF form to each member of the committee via email by31 December, 2015.  Please direct queries to the chair of the prize committee.

Marie Kelleher, California State Univ. Long Beach:  M.Kelleher@csulb.edu
Hussein Fancy, University of Michigan: fancy@umich.edu
Tom Barton, University of San Diego: barton@sandiego.edu

The 2014-2015 Charles Julian Bishko Memorial Prize went to Glaire D. Anderson, "Sign of the Cross: Contexts for the Ivory Cross of San Millán de la Cogolla," Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies 6:1 (Jan. 2014), 15-41.

Members may be interested to know that a new volume of the journal, Erasmo has appeared in circulation (and is available here.) The journal's successful first and second volumes suggest an additional venue for contributions ot the study of Medieval Iberia, and members are invited to consult the journal's homepage for more information about the underlying project that supports it. One brief highligh from this volume: a contribution from the distinguished former AARHMS President, Teo Ruiz, is included .

Additionally, Erasmo, Revista de Historia Bajomedieval y Moderna's Call For Articles is now open for its third number. Erasmo is an open-acess and peer-review journal whose headquarters are located at the University of Valladolid (Spain). We accept original papers focused on case studies or longue-durée essays related to the European and American contexts between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. The theme of the issue is miscellaneous, covering different topics that include, though are not limited to, History, Art History, Literature, or Musicology. The articles, including footnotes, tables, figures and appendices may not exceed 75,000 characters. Especially welcome are interdisciplinary perspectives and new methodological contributions to each discipline. For more information please contact as at revista.erasmo.fyl@uva.es

A valuable web site, associated with a CSIC research project on "Knowledge, Heresy and Political Culture in the Islamic West" (eighth to fifteenth centuries): http://kohepocu.cchs.csic.es/

Congratulations to Simon Doubleday (Hofstra University) and Miguel Gómez (University of Dayton) on their election as president and secretary-treasurer, respectively, of AARHMS.  Their three-year terms will begin in 2015. 

Voting for new AARHMS officers is open until 1 December 2014.  Only active (paid) members are eligible to vote, and have received an email with a URL link to the ballot.

Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies: Best Article Prize (2015) 

The editors of the Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (JMIS) and Routledge are delighted to offer a $500 prize for the most outstanding article published in JMIS in 2015. This prize will be offered thereafter on an annual basis. All articles published in JMIS in 2015 will automatically be considered for the Best Article Prize, and all submissions received during the calendar year 2014 will be considered for publication in 2015. 

All submissions should be uploaded electronically through our online submission system (http://mc.manuscriptcentral.com/jmis). 

Please direct any inquiries to simon.r.doubleday@hofstra.edu. 

The Journal of Medieval Iberian Studies (JMIS) is an interdisciplinary journal for innovative scholarship on the multiple languages, cultures, and historical processes of the Iberian Peninsula, and the zones with which it was in contact. We encourage submission of all innovative scholarship of interest to the community of medievalists and Iberianists. JMIS, which aims to bring theoretically informed approaches into creative contact with more empirically minded scholarship, encompasses archaeology, art and architecture, music, philosophy and religious studies, as well as history, codicology, manuscript studies and the multiple Arabic, Latin, Romance, and Hebrew linguistic and literary traditions of Iberia. 

We welcome work that engages peninsular Iberia in relation to other parts of the ‘post-classical’ world; which explores links of colonization and exchange with the Maghreb, addresses Iberia’s presence in the Mediterranean, or adopts a transatlantic frame. 

The prize will be awarded by a panel of judges appointed by the Editor-in-Chief of JMIS. The judges’ decision will be final, and no correspondence will be entered into. 

As specified in our bylaws, the time has come once again to elect a president and secretary-treasurer for AARHMS.  Please send nominations or self-nominations via email to the current secretary-treasurer, Mark D. Johnston, at mjohnst4@depaul.edu.  The deadline for nominations is 15 October 2014.

Earlier this month at Saint Louis University's annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies, several AARHMS members participated in a new type of conference-within-a-conference which focused on what the Symposium is venturing to call "Special Topics." These conferences aimed to provide the focused discussion and intimate conversation of smaller seminars or conferences, while still providing all of the grand amenities of a larger scholarly gathering.

Among the Symposium's wise selection of sessions, AARHMS' panels and presentations were among the best attended, and were all hosted in the luxurious and stately Pere Marquette Gallery. The AARHMS members who participated were widely congratulated for the conference, and collectively acclaimed the conference a resounding success.

The AARHMS conference, which discussed the Kingdom of Castile during the reign of Alfonso VIII (r. 1158-1214), was an unqualified success. Participants included Janna Bianchini, Miriam Shadis, José Cerda, Martín Alvira, Sam Conedera, Jim Todesca, Damian Smith, Linda Jones, Tom Burman and Miguel Gómez. The papers are being collected into a volume which is planned for appearance next year. 

Not only was the conference the first of its kind hosted at the Saint Louis University Symposium, but it was also the first commemorative conference to celebrate the 800th anniversary of King Alfonso and his Queen Leonor Plantagenet.

AARHMS members interested in hosting another such conference- on any topic within the organization's purview- at SLU's Symposium should email the Symposium directly (smrs@slu.edu) or can inquire internally with either AARHMS' Conference Organizer, Jim Todesca, or its Webmaster, Kyle Lincoln.