BSA Events at ICMS 2025
The Liaisons sub-committee is proud to support these events at the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies, which takes place from 8–10 May 2025.
Location: Western Michigan University
Image Credit: Katherine Hindley
BSA-ICMS Liaison Gina Hurley has organized, with Katherine Hindley and BSA New Scholars Chair Agnieszka Rec, the following events to take place as part of the 60th International Congress on Medieval Studies on site at Western Michigan University.
Registration for the Congress is required. Learn more and view the full program on the ICMS website.
The Ordinary and the Extraordinary in the Book History Classroom (A Roundtable)
Thursday 8 May 2025,10am–11:30am Eastern time
Kanely Chapel 1090 (Social Room), Western Michigan University
Upon encountering medieval materials for the first time, students experience a range of emotions from wonder to excitement— even when they’re approaching ordinary, everyday materials. How do we retain that sense of wonder while also distinguishing between genuinely unusual manuscript and early book features and ones that are more quotidian? How do we teach the “normal” in medieval books, even as we draw attention to the extraordinary? In comparative exercises, how do we support student insights about difference and similarity across geographies and time—guiding students away from teleological narratives of progress towards considerations of local trends and choices?
A roundtable discussion with
Shirin Fozi, Metropolitan Museum of Art
Michael Johnston, Purdue University
Ruen-chuan Ma, Utah Valley University
Eliza H. Feero, Northwestern University
Narrowing In, Broadening Out: Teaching the Medieval from a Single Object (A Roundtable)
Friday 9 May 2025,10am–11:30am Eastern time
Sangren Hall 1720, Western Michigan University
This panel considers how instructors have deployed a single item, whether a codex, a painting, a sculpture, a roll, a tombstone, a cathedral to open up a much broader conversation about the Middle Ages. When we encourage students to explore how a particular object was made, used, and circulated, we give them access to broader avenues of inquiry, such as labor markets, reading histories, and notions of value. Discussants will explore the pedagogical tensions between specificity and generality, representation versus representativeness, the local and global.
A roundtable discussion with
Karen Winstead, Ohio State University
Jess Cochran, University of New Mexico
Neil B. Weijer, University of Florida
Natalie Grinnell, Wofford College
Danielle B. Joyner, Lawrence University
Kristin Leaman, Purdue University
Rachel C. S. Duke, Florida State University
Mind the Gap: Teaching the Medieval from Fragmentary Collections (A Roundtable)
Saturday 10 May 2025, 3:30pm–5pm Eastern time
Sangren Hall 4715, Western Michigan University
No matter where we teach, medievalists are always teaching from a fragmentary archive, using that which survives to think about what might have been. While this panel focuses on medieval material culture, the question of how to teach absence is fundamental to the pedagogy of any historical discipline. Discussants will explore questions including: How can the history of the Middle Ages be taught from a single manuscript or from a set of fragments? How do we help students fill in the gaps and silences of our collections and textual records? How do we talk about survival, provenance, and curation?
A roundtable discussion with
Kasia Leousis, Auburn University
Katherine Storm Hindley, Nanyang Technological University
Liz Hebbard, Indiana University–Bloomington
Lisa Fagin Davis, Medieval Academy of America
There will also be a reception in the Student Center (Room 3203) on Saturday 10 May from 6pm–7:30pm Eastern time. The reception and roundtables are all proudly co-sponsored by the Bibliographical Society of America and the Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Yale University.