MI Graduate Student Awarded Prestigious DAAD Fellowship

The Medieval Institute offers heartfelt congratulations to one of its graduate students, Jeffrey Berland, who has been awarded a prestigious 2020–21 DAAD (Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdients—German Academic Exchange Service) fellowship in Tübingen under the supervision of Professor Steffen Patzold. Jeffrey is a Ph.D. candidate researching questions of ideology and ecclesiology in eighth- and ninth-century Franco-Byzantine relations. He is working towards a joint Ph.D. with the University of Notre Dame and the École Pratique des Hautes Études, part of the Sorbonne in Paris; his primary supervisors are professors Alexander Beihammer (Notre Dame) and François Bougard (EPHE–PSL). 

The fellowship runs from October 1, 2020, to July 31, 2021, and confers a number of important professional development opportunities, including learning German by immersion, building a strong network of international scholars, and studying with leaders in the field. Jeffrey also points to how "German medievalists have different approaches than French and American ones, especially in the field of historical philology or source criticism [...] Staying one year in Germany [will be], therefore, also a great way to get acquainted with these scholars and their teams, and learn from them."

While in Tübingen, he will also participate in conferences and colloquia and continue to write his dissertation, which is in its early stages. The fellowship will also allow him to visit libraries in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria, which hold manuscripts important for his research work.