Lone Medievalist Prize for Scholarly Outreach

We are proud to award the 2019 Lone Medievalist Prize for Scholarly Outreach to Danièle Cybulskie for both The Five-Minute Medievalist blog and The Medieval Podcast. The blog has been published since 2008 and has over 150 articles on topics ranging from werewolves to fashion. The podcast was launched in the beginning of 2019 with the goal of reaching out to wider audiences and providing interesting and educational material. Most of the episodes involve interviewing guests, ranging from scholars to novelists, and trying to cover a diverse range of topics. The podcast is a weekly show, and, as of this award, 28 episodes have been made available with more than 80,000 downloads. Cybulskie is a tireless champion promoting medieval studies to both general and academic audiences.

The lack of attention to tenth-century playwright Hrotsvit of Gandersheim’s work was underscored in 2006 when the feminist art-activist group, The Guerrilla Girls, offered what they called “The Hrotsvit Challenge,” a monetary award that would go to any professional theatre company willing to stage even one of the medieval poet’s plays. The prize went unclaimed for five years. Jenna Soleo-Shanks took up the challenge and has staged Hrotsvit’s plays primarily at at the University of Minnesota Duluth and at the Mostly Medieval Festival at the International Congress on Medieval Studies. More than 900 audience members experienced productions in Duluth and on tour in Kalamazoo.

Reid Weber has made outreach an intrinsic part of his career. Weber’s work takes on many forms: through conference presentations with the Medieval Academy’s K-12 Committee, through utilizing university students in an effort to expand medieval outreach in the greater Oklahoma City area, and within his university to keep interdisciplinary discourse on the Middle Ages front and center. Primarily, Weber directs a very active student organization as faculty sponsor: the Medieval Society at the University of Central Oklahoma. This organization is a stellar example for other lone medievalists to follow.

We are proud to award the 2018 Lone Medievalist Prize for Scholarly Outreach to the editors and staff of The Public Medievalist. The Public Medievalist’s commitment to bridging academic and public discourse has provided a growing number of medievalists with the opportunity to speak to our cultural moment. To take one example, the site’s 2017-2018 series of 42 short essays on “Race, Racism, and the Middle Ages” has been indispensable as a means of engaging with perceptions and misconceptions of the medieval world in modern culture. As a collaborative platform for medieval studies outreach, The Public Medievalist champions the work of medievalists while making participation in public discourse accessible to members of the profession.

Dayanna Knight’s Viking Coloring Book project combines dedication to public outreach and teaching with an entertaining visual approach, introducing young and/or artistic people to the culture of the medieval Scandinavian world. A crowdfunded project with research heft, The Viking Coloring Book is a wonderful introduction to medieval material culture.

Danielle Taylor has developed and runs a medieval manuscript workshop for the public. Her “Medieval Scriptorium Beyond the University” educates participants about parchment and manuscript production, combining hands-on experience with an educational seminar on the history of the process. Over 500 students and members of the public have already participated in Taylor’s “Scriptorium” workshop, bringing knowledge of this understudied facet of medieval life to a mass audience.