In 1925, the Medieval Academy of America (MAA) was founded as a learned society dedicated to pursuing scholarly research on the Middle Ages in North America. A century later, the MAA occupies a central position in the landscape of medieval studies, and Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, the flagship journal of the MAA, has long served as the premier platform for new research in the field.

In the January 2025 issue of Speculum, contributors reflect on the last hundred years of medieval studies and the state of the discipline now. As editor Katherine Jansen notes, “it is a must-read issue for any medievalist who wishes to know not only about our past but our present as well.” 

The issue opens with an introduction by guest editors Roland Betancourt and Karla Mallette, who identify major shifts in medieval studies over the last few decades, including the adoption of a more global perspective on the Middle Ages and a turn toward scholarship informed by feminism, queer theory, trans studies, critical race theory, and Indigenous studies, concerns that are represented in the issue’s collected articles.

In “Medievalists in the Mirror: Looking Back to the World of 1925 and Its Legacy,” authors Carol Symes, Renée R. Trilling, and D. Fairchild Ruggles contextualize the founding of the Medieval Academy of America within the development of the US as a global power. While the preoccupations of the early MAA reflected those of a nation newly invested in self-determination, they note, the fledgling society was also enriched by the contributions of marginalized and precarious medievalists.

In “Anglo-Saxonism and Indigenous Dispossession: Land-Grab Universities and the Emergence of Medieval Studies,” authors Sarah LaVoy-Brunette (Ojibwe) and Dusti C. Bridges historicize the interrelationship of medieval studies and settler colonialism.  

“Society for Medieval Feminist Scholarship and Medieval Studies: Our Institutions, Our Selves; Our Past, and Our Future,” meanwhile, by authors Melissa Ridley Elmes and Nicole Lopez-Jantzen, narrates the history of a project founded to support feminist inquiry in medieval studies, while also acknowledging the organization’s own struggles with insularity and intersectionality.

“Why, Sometimes We’ve Believed Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The BABEL Working Group,” by Eileen A. Fradenburg Joy and Myra Seaman, recounts the efforts of a coalition to cultivate medieval studies across the academic disciplines.

And finally, “In Praise of Collectivity: Why Radical Solidarity Is Our Only Hope,” written by a group known as the Material Collective, calls for a commitment to activism in medieval studies and the academy.

The MAA centennial issue also includes a concluding roundtable that collects perspectives on crisis and optimism from a diverse array of voices in medieval studies. Devoted not only to current challenges facing the discipline, the roundtable seeks to imagine other futures for the field. “In this so-called ‘roundtable,’” note guest editors Betancourt and Mallette, “the conversation is not ossified between our contributors. It will occur among our readership as we continue to hack the institutions that are necessary to our work as medievalists—whatever that word means in 2025 and beyond.”

The University of Chicago Press Journals program began publishing Speculum in partnership with the Medieval Academy of America in 2015.