Medieval Studies Events

The Center for Medieval Studies sponsors many events throughout the year to encourage increased interest, knowledge, and study of the Middle Ages. Our annual conferences highlight one theme per year and attract participants from all over the globe. Our Fall and Spring Lecture Series provide a forum for scholars in the field to come and present new material to the local medievalist community. We also host smaller symposia on specific scholarly questions, and run a series of workshops on Professional Issues in Medieval Studies.

Fall 2023

Tuesday, September 19
Fordham Reads Dante: Dante Behind Bars
Ron Jenkins (Wesleyan University)
5:30 pm | Butler Commons and Zoom
Co-sponsored with Fordham's Curran American Catholic Studies Center and the Department of Modern Languages and Literature

Wednesday, September 27
Roundtable: "The History of Antisemitism: The Crusades"
Robert Chazan (NYU), Nicholas Paul (Fordham, History), Paola Tartakoff (Rutgers), and Suzanne Yeager (Fordham, English)
6:00 pm | Virtual
Hosted by the Museum of Jewish Heritage

Monday, October 2
"The Fall of 'Crusader' Acre Recontextualized: A New Approach to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, c.1240-1291"
Jesse Izzo (Stanford University, Fordham Medieval Fellow 2023-'24)
5:30 pm | Joseph McShane Campus Center 311

Thursday, October 12
"Eclipses, Snakes, and the Microcosm in the Animal Epistle of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ"
Bligh Somma (Fordham, Philosophy) 
1:00 pm | Walsh Library, O'Hare Special Collections

Monday, October 30
Medieval Movie Night: The Keep (1983, dir. Michael Mann)
5:30 pm | Keating First Auditorium

Thursday, November 30
"Recentering Medieval Europe: The Periphery Made Central"
Christian Raffensperger (Wittenberg University)
12:00 pm | Virtual
Co-sponsored with The Centre for Medieval Studies at York, Department of History of Art at York, the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies at Ghent, the Centre for Medieval Literature (Southern Denmark and York), and Fordham's Orthodox Christian Studies Center

Monday, December 11
Medieval Studies Holiday Party
5:30 | Faculty Memorial Hall 405 B

For more information on current events at the Center for Medieval Studies, follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

  • Tuesday, September 19
    Fordham Reads Dante: Dante Behind Bars
    Ron Jenkins (Wesleyan University)
    5:30 pm | Butler Commons and Zoom
    Co-sponsored with Fordham's Curran American Catholic Studies Center and the Department of Modern Languages and Literature

    Wednesday, September 27
    Roundtable: "The History of Antisemitism: The Crusades"
    Robert Chazan (NYU), Nicholas Paul (Fordham, History), Paola Tartakoff (Rutgers), and Suzanne Yeager (Fordham, English)
    6:00 pm | Virtual
    Hosted by the Museum of Jewish Heritage

    Monday, October 2
    "The Fall of 'Crusader' Acre Recontextualized: A New Approach to the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem, c.1240-1291"
    Jesse Izzo (Stanford University, Fordham Medieval Fellow 2023-'24)
    5:30 pm | Joseph McShane Campus Center 311

    Thursday, October 12
    "Eclipses, Snakes, and the Microcosm in the Animal Epistle of the Iḫwān al-Ṣafāʾ"
    Bligh Somma (Fordham, Philosophy)
    1:00 pm | Walsh Library, O'Hare Special Collections

    Monday, October 30
    Medieval Movie Night: The Keep (1983, dir. Michael Mann)
    5:30 pm | Keating First Auditorium

    Thursday, November 30
    "Recentering Medieval Europe: The Periphery Made Central"
    Christian Raffensperger (Wittenberg University)
    12:00 pm | Virtual
    Co-sponsored with The Centre for Medieval Studies at York, Department of History of Art at York, the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies at Ghent, the Centre for Medieval Literature (Southern Denmark and York), and Fordham's Orthodox Christian Studies Center

    Monday, December 11
    Medieval Studies Holiday Party
    5:30 | Faculty Memorial Hall 405 B

  • Tuesday, February 7
    York Medieval Lecture
    Fozia Bora (University of Leeds) 
    12:30pm ET/5:30 GMT | Zoom 
    Co-sponsored with The Centre for Medieval Studies at York, Department of History of Art at York, the Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies at Ghent, and the Centre for Medieval Literature (Southern Denmark and York) 

    Wednesday, February 8
    "Cinematic Imaginaries of Medieval England: Examining Race and Nation in ‘Angevin’ Film, 1938-1964" 
    Esther Cuenca (University of Houston-Victoria)
    5:30pm-7pm | Fordham University Rose Hill | Keating 3rd

    Monday, February 27 
    "Reproducing Wenches: Histories of Intersectional Disadvantage" 
    Carissa Harris (Temple University)
    1:00-2:30pm | Fordham University Rose Hill | Bepler Commons 

    Saturday, March 4 & Sunday March 5
    The 42nd Annual Conference, Fordham Center for Medieval Studies
    Lost & Found: The Legacies of Greek Culture in the Global Middle Ages
    Fordham University Lincoln Center, Leon Lowenstein Building 12th Floor Lounge 
    Co-sponsored with Fordham's Center for Orthodox Studies and Department of Theology

    Wednesday, March 22
    Elements and Edges: Inhabitable and Uninhabitable Worlds in Medieval Encyclopaedias
    Luke Sunderland (Durham University)
    5:30pm-7:00pm | Fordham University Rose Hill | Room TBD 

    Monday, March 27th
    A workshop with 2023 Medieval Fellow, Dr. Marianne Ailes 
    Tolerance, difference, respect: exploring attitudes to the religious Other in crusading literature. 
    Fordham University Rose Hill | Room TBD 

    Friday, March 31
    NYC Inter-University Doctoral Consortium Medieval Studies Symposium
    Organized by the CUNY Graduate Center
    9:30am-4:00pm | John Jay College

    Wednesday, April 12
    "Unseen/Unheard: Images of Silence in Medieval Art"
    Vincent Debiais (L’école des hautes études en sciences sociales)
    5:30pm-7:00pm | Fordham University Rose Hill | Keating 3rd 

    Tuesday, May 16
    Book Launch: Christian Supremacy: Reckoning with the Roots of Antisemitism and Racism
    Magda Teter (History & Jewish Studies, Fordham), with a panel discussion featuring Bryan Massingale (Theology, Fordham) and Jed Shugerman (Fordham Law School), moderated by David Gibson (Center on Religion and Culture, Fordham)
    4:00pm | Fordham University, Lincoln Center | Room TBD & Zoom 
    Co-sponsored by Fordham's Center for Jewish Studies, Fordham's Center on Religion and Culture, Fordham Law School, and Fordham's Institute on Religion, Law & Lawyer's Work.

  • Sunday October 2
    Fort Tryon Medieval Festival: Ask A Medievalist Booth
    Fort Tryon Park

    Wednesday October 5 
    “Singing Truth to Power: Medieval Protest Music" by Alkemie Early Music
    Fordham Lincoln Center, 12th Floor Lounge
    co-sponsored with the Dept. of Art History and Music 

    Monday October 17
    Medieval Movie Night: The Northman (2022)
    Fordham Rose Hill, Keating 1st Auditorium
    with commentary by Sean Spillane (Fordham English PhD)

    Monday, October 24 
    "The many lives of (sal) ammoniac: Finding the tacit tradition of materia medica in eleventh- and twelfth-century Sicily"
    Robin Reich (Fordham Medieval Fellow)
    Fordham Rose Hill, Joseph McShane Campus Center 112

    Friday, November 4
    “Indigeneity in the Early Medieval North Atlantic”
    Tarren Andrews (University of Colorado - Boulder)
    Fordham Rose Hill, Walsh Library, O'Hare Special Collections
    Co-sponsored with Dept. of English

    Saturday November 5
    Reframing the Tudors: A Symposium to Accompany the Exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art
    Fordham Lincoln Center, 12th Floor Lounge 
    Co-sponsored by RSA and Metropolitan Museum of Art

    Monday November 14
    Medieval Movie Night: Ironclad (2011)
    with commentary by Nicholas Paul (MVST/ History)
    Fordham Rose Hill, Location TBD

    Monday December 12
    Medieval Studies Holdiay Party 

  • A Roundtable Discussion with the editors of postmedieval
    Sara Ritchey (Associate Professor of History, University of Tennessee, Knoxville), Shazia Jagot (Lecturer in Medieval and Global Literature, University of York), Julie Orlemanski (Associate Professor of English, University of Chicago)
    Wednesday February 16
    Zoom

    The Point of the Soul: Facts and Values from Ulysses' Quest to Dante's Examination on Love
    Alison Cornish (NYU)
    Monday March 7th
    Butler Commons | Rose Hill

    Cultures of Exchange: Mercantile Mentalities Between Italy and the World
    41st Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University
    Saturday-Sunday, March 26-27, 2022
    Lincoln Center 

    Medieval Movie Night: Al Nasser Salah Ad-Din/ Saladin the Victorious (1963)
    Friday April 1st
    McNally Amphitheatre | Lincoln Center

    Economic Consolidation and the Decline of Puigcerdà in the 14th Century
    Elizabeth Comuzzi (Fordham)
    Thursday April 28th
    Butler Commons | Rose Hill

  • The Cloisters and the Jews in Medieval Spain: A Conversation on Art, Literature, and History
    Peter Cole, Katrin Kogman-Appel, and Jonathan Ray
    Sunday, September 19
    Zoom Webinar
    Sponsored by Fordham Center for Jewish Studies and the Met Cloisters

    The Now of the Rose
    Melanie Garcia Sympson, Elina Gertsman, Sandra Hindman, Meradith McMunn, Christine McWebb, Jonathan Morton, and Stephen G. Nichols
    Wednesday, October 20
    Zoom Webinar
    Co-sponsored with Les Enluminures

    Ghent Autumn School in Medieval Languages and Cultures
    Scales of Knowledge: From Cosmos to Book
    Monday, October 18 - Thursday, October 21

    Image as Compilation: Jerusalem in the Liber Floridus and Beyond
    Hanna Vorholt (Universisty of York) 
    Thursday, October 21
    Livestream

    Autumn School co-sponsored with The Henri Pirenne Institute for Medieval Studies (Ghent), Centre for Medieval Literature (Odense and York), The Center for Medieval Studies (York)

    Virtual Lecture with Karla Mallette (University of Michigan)
    Wednesday, November 10
    Zoom 

    Finding India: Land, Language, and History in The Book of John Mandeville & Pehr Kalm's Travels  
    Suzanne Conklin Akbari (Princeton - IAS)
    Wednesday, December 1
    O'Hare Special Collections, Walsh Library, 4th Floor | Rose Hill

    Exhibiting Medieval Spain: Yesterday and Today 
    Sunday, December 5, 1:00pm
    Zoom Webinar 
    Sponsored by the Fordham Center for Jewish Studies and the Met Cloisters

    Putting on Cologne: An Exploration of a Medieval City
    Ephraim Shoham-Steiner (Ben-Gurion University)
    Wednesday, December 8
    Co-sponsored with the Fordham Center for Jewish Studies

  • Alexander the Minorite's Commentary on Revelation: Crusade and Prophecy in the Time of Frederick II
    Jay Rubenstein 9 (UNC Dornsife)
    Wednesday, February 3
    Zoom

    Annual Conference
    Medieval French without Borders

    Online, with pre-recorded videos, zoom webinars, zoom discussions, and a final roundtable
    March 20-21, 2021
    Zoom

  • The Impostor Sea: Fraud in the Medieval Mediterranean
    Hussein Fancy (University of Michigan)
    Tuesday, September 29
    Zoom

    Women and Wills in Medieval London: A Master Class
    Caroline Barron (University of London)
    Wednesday, October 21
    Zoom

    "Go Forth and Learn”: The Artist Joel ben Simeon and a Newly Discovered Hebrew Manuscript
    A joint program between Fordham's Center for Jewish Studies and Les Enluminures, featuring Sandra Hindman, Sharon Liberman Mintz, Nina Rowe, with a keynote by Katrin Kogman-Appel
    Thursday, October 22
    Zoom

    Seminar and Workshop: Pandemics through Time: The Renaissance Experience and Modern Pedagogy
    Friday, November 13, 10:00am via Zoom
    Co-sponsored with the Renaissance Society of America

    Holy Healing: Saints and Leprosy in the Middle Ages
    Jennifer Edwards (Manhattan College)
    Thursday, December 3
    Zoom

  • Faculty Book Talk: Getting the Blues: Vision and Cognition in the Middle Ages (2018)
    Brian J. Reilly (Fordham University)
    Friday, January 17
    Campbell Hall, Multipurpose Room | Rose Hill

    Sweet Friendship: Courtly Song & Dance from 15th-century France and Italy
    Alkemie Early Music
    Friday, January 24
    Tognino Hall, Duane Library | Rose Hill
    Saturday, January 25, 2020, 7:30 p.m. 
    Pope Auditorium, Leon Lowenstein Building (Lincoln Center)
    Co-sponsored with the Department of Art History and Music

    Medieval Movie Night: The Princess Bride
    Friday, February 7

    Scripture Transformed in Late Medieval England: The Religious, Artistic, and Social Worlds of the Welles-Ros Bible (Paris, BnF fr. 1)
    Kathryn Smith (New York University)
    Thursday, February 27
    McMahon 109 | Lincoln Center

    Planets and Angels, Facts and Values: Paradiso 29
    Alison Cornish (New York University)
    Tuesday, March 10
    O'Hare Special Collections, Walsh Library | Rose Hill

    The following events were canceled following the closure of the University due to COVID-19.

    Medieval Movie Night: The 13th Warrior
    Friday, April 3, 2020

    A Concert by Collegium Musicum Fordhamense
    Collegium Musicum Fordhamense
    Friday, April 24
    Butler Gallery | Lincoln Center
    Co-sponsored with the Department of Art History and Music

    Peter Lombard from the Manuscripts: Teaching, Career, and the Schools of Paris
    Mark Clark (Catholic University of America)
    Wednesday, April 29
    O'Hare Special Collections, Walsh Library | Rose Hill

    Medieval Movie Night: Becket
    Friday, May 1

  • "The Series: Hoccleve's Year of Mourning"
    Sebastian Sobecki (University of Groningen)
    Tuesday, September 17
    O'Hare Special Collections | Rose HIll
    Co-sponsored with Department of English

    25th Annual Fort Tryon Park Medieval Festival
    Sunday, September 29
    Fort Tryon Park

    "Geographic Information Systems, Reflectance Transformation Imaging, and the Prosopography of 13th-Century London"
    John McEwan (Post-Doctoral Fellow, Walter Ong SJ Center for Digital Humanities, St. Louis University)
    Tuesday, October 8
    FMH 314 | Rose Hill
    Co-sponsored with the Fordham Digital Humanities Consortium

    Jews and Christians in the Medieval City: Art, Archaeology, and Traces of the Past
    Thursday, October 24
    McNally Amphitheatre | Lincoln Center

    Biduum Latinum 2019 - De Architectura: Writings on Architecture from Antiquity to the Renaissance
    Thursday and Friday, October 24 and 25
    Featuring: Posicio Officinarum [monasterii], Codex Sangallensis 1092 (c. 820-830)
    presented by Prof. Scott Bruce (History / Medieval Studies)
    Friday, October 25
    Walsh Library | Rose Hill
    For the remaining schedule see here: Thursday. October 24 and Friday, October 25

    "Memoria Sefardí"
    Judith Cohen (York University)
    Tuesday, October 29
    Butler Commons | Rose Hill

    "Writing as Wayfinding: Pilgrimage Ecopoetics and the Medieval Moment"
    Susan Signe Morrison, University of Texas
    Wednesday, November 6 
    O'Hare Special Collections | Rose Hill
    Co-sponsored with the Department of Art History and Music, and the Program in Jewish Studies

    "Jerusalem: City of the Book"
    Merav Mack (Hebrew University of Jerusalem) and Benjamin Balint
    Wednesday, November 13
    McNally Amphitheatre | Lincoln Center
    Co-sponsored with the Center for Orthodox Studies

    "My Bestial Half: a Roman de Fauvel Project"
    A concert by Collegium Musicum Fordhamense
    Friday, December 6
    McNally Amphitheatre | Lincoln Center
    Co-sponsored with the Department of Art History and Music

  • "Everyone Has Problems. Difficult Documents and Messy Manuscripts: a Workshop"
    Thursday, May 2
    McMahon 109 |  Lincoln Center 

    Social and Sacred in the Medieval Haggadah
    Adam Cohen (University of Toronto)
    Wednesday, April 10, 2019
    McNally Amphitheatre | Lincoln Center
    Co-Sponsored with the Program in Jewish Studies and the Department of Art History and Music

    Ritual and Religion in the Medieval World
    39th Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies, Fordham University
    Saturday - Sunday, March 30-31
    Lincoln Center

    Fordham University Library MS 3, Private Collectors, and Public Libraries: The World of Linked Data
    William P. Stoneman (Curator of Early Books and Manuscripts, Houghton Library, Harvard University)
    First Annual Fordham Library Associates Lecture
    Monday, February 11, 2019 
    O’Hare Special Collections, Walsh Library | Rose Hill
    Co-sponsored with the Center for Medieval Studies

    Cyprus, 1400: Island at the Crossroads of Culture
    Concert presented by Alkemie Early Music Ensemble
    Friday February 8
    Lincoln Center 

    Guess Who's Coming to Seder: Skin Color in the Iberian Haggadot
    Pamela Patton (Director of the Index of Medieval Art, Princeton University)
    Thursday, January 24
    McMahon 109 | Lincoln Center
    Co-Sponsored with the Program in Jewish Studies and the Department of Art History and Music

  • Flowers of the Trecento: A Concert by Collegium Musicum Fordhamense
    Part of the Fordham University Concert Series presented by the departments of Medieval Studies, Art History and Music
    Directed by Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek
    Thursday, November 29 
    Ildiko Butler Gallery | Lincoln Center

    Bonaventure Colloquium: The Entrance of God into Theology
    Emmanuel Falque  (Institut catholique de Paris)
    Thursday, October 25
    Duane Library, Bepler Commons | Rose Hill Campus
    Co-sponsored with the Department of Philosophy

    The Work of Gothic Sculpture in the Age of Photographic Reproduction
    Jacqueline Jung  (Yale University)
    Thursday, October 18 
    Lincoln Center Campus
    Co-sponsored with the Department of Art History and Music, and the Department of Jewish Studies

    Classical and Medieval Astronomy: the Phaenomena, Pliny and the Presentation of the Heavens
    Eric Ramirez-Weaver (University of Virginia)
    Friday, October 12
    American Museum of Natural History, Kaufmann Theater
    Sponsored by the Amateur Astronomers Association of New York
    Co-sponsored by Fordham's Department of Classics and the Center for Medieval Studies

    Biduum Latinum 2018 - De Arte Astonomica: Astronomy in Antiquity, Middle Ages, and Renaissance
    Saturday, October 13
    Pliny the Elder, Historia Naturalis, Bk. II (c. 79 AD)
    Guillelmus de Conchis, Dragmaticon Philosophiae (c. 1150)
    Nicolaus Copernicus, De Revolutionibus Orbium Caelestium (1543)
    4:45 - 5:30 p.m. - Missa Latina (= Latin Mass) - Spellman Hall
    Celebrated by Fr. Chris Cullen, SJ (Dept. of Philosophy)

    The 34th Annual Medieval Festival at Fort Tryon Park
    Sunday, September 30
    Fort Tryon Park |  Met Cloisters

    The Question of Middle English Romance
    Nicola McDonald (York University)
    Tuesday, September 11
    O'Hare Special Collections, Walsh Library | Rose Hill

    Digital Day 2018
    August 22-23
    Walsh Library 044 | Rose Hill
    Download the event program.
    Thank you to all who attended or participated in this event.
    View collected reportage of what took place at Digital Day.

  • Hymns, Heresy, and Hockets: Performing Philippe de Vitry
    The Departments of Medieval Studies and Music at Fordham University Concert Series
    Tuesday, April 24
    Leon Lowenstein Center, 12th Floor Lounge | Lincoln Center 

    The War of Towers: Italian Maritime Rivalries in Thirteenth-Century Crusader Syria
    Thomas Madden (St. Louis University)
    Thursday, April 12
    Bepler Commons | Rose Hill Campus

    Inside Out: Dress and Identity in the Middle Ages
    38th Annual Conference of the Center for Medieval Studies
    Saturday and Sunday, March 17-18
    McNally Amphitheater | Lincoln Center 

    Guiraut Riquier's Songs: Time and Memory
    Susan Boynton (Columbia University)
    Wednesday, February 21
    O'Hare Special Collections, Walsh Library | Rose Hill

    The Trinitarian Debates, the Rise of Theological Debates, and the Parting of the Ways in Late Antiquity
    Emanuel Fiano (Fordham University)
    Tuesday, January 23
    O'Hare Special Collections, Walsh Library | Rose Hill

  • A Flower in Winter: The Challenges and Rewards of Singing Hildegard
    Jacqueline Horner-Kwiatek, mezzo-soprano (formerly of Anonymous 4)
    Monday, November 27
    12th Floor Lounge, Leon Lowenstein Center | Lincoln Center 
    Co-sponsored by the Music Department

    Realism Versus Reality in Dante's Paradiso
    Teodolinda Barolini (Columbia University)
    Wednesday, November 8
    O'Hare Special Collections, Walsh Library | Rose Hill

    Roman Royal Histories: The Cultural Legacies of Kingdoms Allied to the Roman Empire After Their Annexation
    Richard Teverson (Fordham University)
    Thursday, October 19
    O'Hare Special Collections, Walsh Library | Rose Hill

    Total Medicine: An Approach to the Corpus of Anglo-Saxon Healing Texts
    John D. Niles  (UC Berkeley and Univ. of Wisconsin-Madison)
    Friday, September 29
    O'Hare Special Collections, Walsh Library | Rose Hill