August 28, 2006

Dear MAP members,

I write on behalf of the MAP officers and Council Members to greet you at the beginning of another academic year, to ask you to renew your membership for the 2006-07 academic year, and to invite you to submit a proposal for a paper or session at the next annual MAP conference.

The conference, hosted by the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at UCLA, will take place March 2-3, 2007. Blair Sullivan and Scott Kleinman are chairing the local arrangements committee for the 2007 meeting.

Abstracts for papers are due November 1, 2006 and should be sent as e-mail attachments simultaneously to Brenda Schildgen, Secretary of MAP (bdschildgen@ucdavis.edu), and Blair Sullivan (mailto:sullivan@humnet.ucla.edu).

Your one-page abstract should include your name, discipline, institution, and e-mail address. Independent scholars should provide other contact information. Papers normally will be 20 minutes in length. We also welcome proposals for full sessions, preferably interdisciplinary and with presenters from more than one institution. Proposals for full sessions should include a cover sheet containing the names, affiliations, and complete contact information for the three participants and the session organizer.

Since it also now time to renew your membership, an application/renewal form is attached below. You will also find one on the MAP web site http://www.cmrs.ucla.edu/MAP/. Our dues, a remarkably low $25 each year, must be one of the great bargains available. Therefore we particularly appreciate members who renew annually whether they attend the annual meeting or not. We also warmly appreciate the gifts many members send along with their dues.

Membership renewals should be mailed to our treasurer,

Mary-Lyon Dolezal
Department of Art History
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-5229

Please remind graduate students working on medieval topics that MAP subsidizes student registration fees for our annual meetings, and that it makes available the following awards and prizes:

The John F. Benton Travel Awards, which contribute $400.00 towards the cost of travel to conferences for independent scholars and graduate students.

The Founders' Prizes, given to the best graduate student papers delivered at the annual MAP conference.

The next deadline for the Benton awards is November 1, 2006: applications should be made to the Vice President, Peter Diehl, mailto:pddiehl@cc.wwu.edu.

I look forward to seeing many of you in Los Angeles next March. In the meantime, do continue to check in with the website to keep abreast of MAP's activities.

Sincerely,

May 21, 2006

Dear Members and Prospective Members of the Medieval Association of the Pacific:

I write as President of MAP to update members not able to attend the annual conference about MAP news and to provide all members with more information about our next annual meeting. We send this letter to our e-mail membership list, print it in Chronica, and post it on the MAP website in hopes of communicating with everyone who is or might be interested in becoming a member.

According to MAP custom, I succeeded Siân Echard as President of MAP after two years of service as Vice President. Before being elected Vice President I had served several terms on the Council, the first time from 1985-88, and had served as Secretary of MAP and Editor of Chronica from 1998-2003. I also served as spouse of the MAP President from 1992-94 when George Brown was President. Thus I know the organization from many points of view. I am honored to serve as President.

Since the meeting in Utah, plans for the 2007 MAP meeting have firmed up. Blair Sullivan and the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies will host our meeting at UCLA Friday and Saturday March 2-3, 2007. Paul Dutton and former MAP President Caroline Bynum will be our two plenary speakers. As usual paper submissions will be due November 1, 2006. I encourage those interested to submit proposals for complete sessions, especially sessions that are interdisciplinary and include presenters from more than one university.

The 2008 meeting will be conjoint with the Medieval Academy at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, Canada, hosted by Siân Echard.

Thinking back on the 2006 annual MAP meeting, several features stand out for me. The policy implemented during Dhira Mahoney’s term as President of having two plenary speakers served us well: Martin Carmargo’s “Medieval Rhetoric Delivers: Pedagogy and Performance in and beyond the Medieval Classroom” and Peter von Sivers’ “Getting Along: The Afterglow of Convivencia in the Cantigas de Santa Maria” entertained and informed their audiences. All the papers I heard during the five concurrent sessions were interesting and elicited thoughtful discussion. I was especially pleased by the high quality of papers presented by graduate student members of our organization.

We celebrated MAP turning 40 with a special plenary session called “Memories of MAP,” at which six MAP presidents reflected on our history. Andy Kelly, George Brown, Nancy van Deusen, Glenn Olsen, Dhira Mahoney, and Siân Echard each presented a different perspective, after which members in the audience added their memories. Since then I have revised the MAP history on our web site, correcting some errors brought to my attention and bringing the history up to date.

The local arrangements committee, chaired by Georgiana Donavin, our host for the conference, did a superlative job providing for us at Westminster College and Little America. Saturday morning we were treated to snow and brilliant sunshine. Throughout the conference the mountain ranges in view from the city were stunning.

At the Business Meeting, congratulations were offered to winners of the Benton Award and the Founders’ Prize, and thanks were proffered to outgoing President Siân Echard and members of the MAP Council, Jarbel Rodriguez, David Tinsley, and Nick Howe. New officers and councilors were elected by the membership: Peter Diehl, History, was elected the new Vice President, and Julie Paulson, Scott Kleinman, Blair Sullivan, Keizo Asagi, and Michael Curley were elected to terms on the Council.

I will conclude with two reminders:

• If you haven’t renewed your membership for 2005-06, please do. The Treasurer reported at the Business Meeting in Utah that renewals are disturbingly low. If you aren’t sure whether you paid or not, you can always send $25 with a note that it can be a gift to the organization if your dues are current!
• Spread the word about MAP, especially to graduate students. And make sure they know about the Benton Award, which supports travel to conferences, and the Founders’ Award for the best student papers presented at the MAP conference.

Wishing you all well as we approach summer,

Phyllis Brown
President, MAP

MAP website: http://cmrs.ucla.edu/MAP/

Membership is $25 for faculty and $15 for students
Make checks payable to the Medieval Association of the Pacific and send them to the treasurer,

Professor Mary-Lyon Dolezal
Department of Art History
University of Oregon
Eugene, OR 97403-5229
Address for membership renewal
http://cmrs.ucla.edu/MAP/membership.html

September 12, 2005

Dear MAP members,

To all our new and returning members, welcome back to another academic year. We hope that the upcoming MAP conference will be one of the highlights of 2005-2006 for many of you. The meeting will take place in Salt Lake City, Utah, hosted by Westminster College, from March 3-4, 2006. Local arrangements are being handled by Georgiana Donavin. Abstracts for papers are due November 1, 2005 and can be sent via e-mail attachment simultaneously to Georgiana Donavin (gdonavin@westminstercollege.edu), local arrangement organizer, and Brenda Schildgen (bdschildgen@ucdavis.edu), secretary of MAP. Because this will be MAP's 40th anniversary, we are hoping to recognize some of our history and the history of our discipline at this meeting, through special sessions. Your one-page abstract MAP proposal should include your name, institution, and e-mail address.

Graduate student members are reminded that MAP subsidizes student registration fees for our annual meetings, and that it makes available the following awards and prizes: the John F. Benton Travel Awards, which contribute $400.00 towards the cost of travel to conferences for independent scholars and graduate students; and the Founders' Prizes, given to the best graduate student papers delivered at the annual MAP conference. The next deadline for the Benton awards is November 1, 2005: applications should be made to the Vice President, Phyllis Brown (pbrown@scu.edu). Use the "membership application" link at the left to easily renew your membership in MAP.

I look forward to seeing many of you in Utah next March. In the meantime, do continue to check in with the website to keep abreast of MAP's activities.

Sincerely,                       

Siân Echard
President, Medieval Association of the Pacific

April 12, 2005

Dear Members and Prospective Members of the Medieval Association of the Pacific:

Warmed (despite the cold showers outside my window) by our recent conference at San Francisco State University, I am delighted to welcome all returning members of MAP, as well as to urge prospective members to join this most collegial of associations. I have been a member of MAP since joining the English department at the University of British Columbia in 1990, and since then have never failed to be impressed by MAP’s membership and its meetings. We turn 40 this year, and we can look back on four decades of stimulating scholarship and enduring friendships. I hope you’ll all stay with us to see what the next decades will bring

The meeting at San Francisco State was superbly organized by Bill Bonds, Jarbel Rodriguez, and their local arrangements committee, and it is worth registering yet again in this format our profound thanks for the wonderful work they did. The meeting rooms and catering were superb, with no detail, however small, having been overlooked. Two masterly keynote addresses, by Patrick J. Geary and Warren Ginsberg, were highlights of the program, as was the performance of early music directed by William Mahrt. Our business meeting allowed us to thank four retiring council members– Roger Dahood, Leslie Arnovick, Mathew Kuefler, and Karen Mathews– and to confirm their replacements– Laurel Amtower, Linda Georgianna, Kathleen Maxwell, and Arlene Sindelar. We also confirmed Mary-Lyon Dolezal as the replacement for Debora Schwartz, who had resigned as Treasurer.

MAP’s next meeting will take place in Salt Lake City, Utah, hosted by Westminster College, March 3-4, 2006. Local arrangements are being handled by Georgiana Donavin. Abstracts for papers will be due November 1, 2005 and can be sent via e-mail attachment simultaneously to Georgiana Donavin, local arrangement organizer, and Brenda Schildgen, secretary of MAP. Because this will be MAP’s 40th anniversary, we are hoping to recognize some of our history and the history of our discipline at this meeting, through special sessions.
 
MAP is an excellent venue for graduate students. If you are a faculty member, please encourage your students to join and to attend our meetings: you might even consider making them a gift of a graduate student membership.  Graduate student members are reminded that MAP subsidizes student registration fees for our annual meetings, and that it makes available the following awards and prizes: the John F. Benton Travel Awards, which contribute $400 towards the cost of travel to conferences for independent scholars and graduate students; and the Founder's Prizes, given to the best graduate student papers delivered at the annual MAP conference. The next deadline for the Benton awards is November 1, 2005: applications should be made to the Vice President, Phyllis Brown (PBrown@scu.edu). Graduate students who wish their papers to be considered for the Founders’ Prize should submit their papers, preferably electronically, to John Ott (ott@pdx.edu) by September 15, 2005.
 
I look forward to seeing many of you in Utah next March. In the meantime, do check in with the website to keep abreast of MAP’s activities.
 
Sincerely,     
                                                          
Siân Echard                                    
President, MAP