Call for Participants: Medieval Studies, Leadership, and Public Humanities Advocacy
MLA 2027 (Los Angeles)
Forum: French Medieval Language and Literature
Roundtable Session

Medievalists are uniquely trained to lead and to advocate publicly for the humanities. Our work requires deep specialization alongside expansive, longue-durée thinking; facility with theory paired with the ability to explain—to students, colleagues, administrators, and publics—why our work matters at all. Working with fragmentary archives, cross-cultural materials, and fields often perceived as marginal, medievalists develop intellectual agility, rhetorical clarity, and collaborative skills essential to leadership and public advocacy.

This roundtable explores medieval studies as a training ground for humanities leadership and public-facing career pathways, within and beyond the academy. Medievalists frequently serve as translators of value—articulating the stakes of humanistic inquiry to non-specialist audiences, navigating modernist-dominated institutional structures, and building coalitions across disciplines and communities. Centering lived experience rather than prescriptive models, the session examines how medievalist habits of thought shape approaches to advocacy, communication, and institutional imagination, and contribute to a variety of successful career trajectories.

We invite 5-7 minute presentations from participants at any career stage, including graduate students, contingent faculty, administrators, and those working in alt-ac or public humanities roles, with ample room for audience engagement.

Guiding questions include:

1.     How does medievalist training prepare scholars to advocate publicly for the humanities?

2.     What rhetorical, interpretive, or collaborative skills developed in medieval studies translate most directly to public-facing leadership?

3.     How does working in a “niche” or under-resourced field sharpen strategies for explaining value to non-specialist audiences?

4.     How can medievalists model effective humanities advocacy in moments of institutional and cultural precarity?

Please send 150-200 word proposal and CV to Megan Moore, mooremegan@missouri.edu by February 28th.