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Working Groups

Each year the Medieval Institute sponsors Working Groups, an opportunity for faculty fellows and graduate students to investigate a topic relating to shared research interests.

Current Working Groups

The Digital Schoolbook

The Digital Schoolbook working group is focusing on finalizing the development and deployment of the DSB web app (still in alpha version, which now includes two digital humanities components, namely 1) a digital edition of The Distichs of Cato, and 2) a more public facing DH component: a web and mobile game for Latin learners that revivifies the pedagogical methods of The Distichs of Cato and makes them relevant for present-day students. The working group meetings include the collaboration of seasoned digital humanists and expert game designers who will contribute participants with foundational training in concrete design and technological skills—namely, basic database and web design, the lifecycle of game design and development, and how to collaborate with external designers and developers. In short, the main purpose of this expanding multidisciplinary project is to create a space where scholars and traditional digital humanists learn how to collaborate with software technologies developers to create deliverables that are able to reach a wider audience than traditional digital humanities projects.

Faculty and Graduate Student Organizers

• W. Martin Bloomer
• David Gura
• Julia Schneider
• Carlos Diego Arenas Pacheco
• Hannah VanSyckel

For more information or to join this working group, please contact Hannah VanSyckel.

Medieval Liturgy

The Medieval Liturgy Working Group is dedicated to interdisciplinary scholarship on liturgy across the long Middle Ages, in diverse traditions of both East and West. Notre Dame has one of the largest representations of scholars dedicated to research on medieval liturgy, spread across at least six different departments and programs at the university. This Medieval Institute working group brings faculty, researchers, and graduate students together to share work in progress, advance methodological reflections on the discipline, and increase visibility and interdisciplinarity for liturgical studies at Notre Dame and in the broader academy.

Faculty and Graduate Student Organizers

• Katie Bugyis
• Margot Fassler
• Nina Glibetic
• Peter Jeffery
• CJ Jones
• Gabriel Radle
• Julia Schneider
• Kristina Kummerer

For more information or to join this working group, please contact Katie Bugyis.

Unknown Ancient Greek Homilies in an Ambrosiana Palimpsest

Faculty and Graduate Student Organizers

• David Lincicum
• David Gura
• Lilly Davis
• Carlos Garcia
• Jen Guo
• Matthew Klem
• Garrett Haddock

For more information or to join this working group, please contact Lilly Davis.

The Papacy and Eastern Christian Traditions

The working group on the Papacy and Eastern Christian traditions aspires to promote discussions among students and faculty on topics along the spectrum of this multifaceted research area, with particular attention to its interdisciplinary and ecumenical aspects. The term “papacy” in the title of the working group stands not only for the institution but also for medieval Latin Christianity, of which the papacy was the main driving force. Chronologically, the period of 1100–1500 will be our primary focus as the time of the classical emergence of this problematic, but we would be open to include connected topics related to earlier centuries as well as the issue’s resonances in the early modern period. Thus, we hope to welcome scholars and conversations regarding the sources of these questions in the patristic period and their continuing relevance for the various Eastern Christian Churches and  traditions until today. In terms of geographic and cultural diversity, along with papers/discussions on Latin-Byzantine Greek relations we would welcome contributions from Syriac, Armenian, Coptic, Arabic, and Slavic  perspectives. We hope that the WG thus becomes a site for discussion of ongoing research projects and for reflection upon methodology and conceptual frameworks. 

Faculty and Graduate Student Organizers

• Khaled Anatolios
• Yury P. Avvakumov
• Alexander Beihammer
• Nina Glibetic
• Margaret Meserve
• Gabriel Radle
• Milanna Fritz
• Andrij Hlabse
• Edith Lagarde

For more information or to join this working group, please contact Andrij Hlabse.

Religion and Pluralism in the Medieval Mediterranean

The working group will explore questions pertaining to the study of religions, religious interactions, the formation of identity and community, and the state of the fields of religion, literature, and history in the medieval Mediterranean. Our group will continue to invite participants to consider the ways in which the medieval Mediterranean world was shaped by religious pluralism and the interaction of religions (principally Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) and how that reality is reflected in contemporary scholarship. Through this working group, participants will continue to appreciate contemporary scholarship on various aspects of the medieval Mediterranean across a wide range of disciplines.

Faculty and Graduate Student Organizers

• Thomas Burman
• Jessalynn Bird
• Jeremy Brown
• Francisco Cintrón Mattei

For more information or to join this working group, please contact Francisco Cintrón Mattei.

Submitting a Proposal

The Working Group application deadline has been extended to April 29. Review the Proposal Instructions to prepare and submit an application.  

The MI Faculty Committee will review applications and the MI will inform groups of decisions. 

Guidelines for Working Groups

Approved groups will want to review the Guidelines for Working Groups so they are familiar with the necessary steps for planning their events and running their groups.