Welcome
Founded in 1990, the Hagiography Society exists to promote communication among scholars studying holy people and their cults in all eras, cultures, and religious traditions. We sponsor multiple sessions at various academic conferences on both sides of the Atlantic, publish a book series, regular newsletters and maintain a listserv and an online member directory and bibliography. Our annual business meeting occurs at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, Michigan, each May.
Winner of the 2019 Hagiography Society Book Prize
Maya Maskarinec, City of Saints: Rebuilding Rome in the Early Middle Ages
The Hagiography Society is delighted to announce that the 2019 Book Prize winner is Maya Maskarinec (University of Southern California; Department of History) for her monograph City of Saints: Rebuilding Rome in the Early Middle Ages (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2018). We warmly congratulate Prof. Maskarinec for this noteworthy achievement. We would also like to thank the panel of judges who generously shared their expertise to evaluate the books submitted for the prize. The scholars who served on the judging committee this year included E. Ann Matter, Professor of Religious Studies Emerita at the University of Pennsylvania; Carolyn Muessig, Professor of Medieval Religion at the University of Bristol; and Nancy Warren, Professor of English at Texas A&M University. Here is their statement regarding Prof. Maskarinec’s City of Saints: “This study of definitions of sanctity and the social implications of the veneration of saints in early medieval Rome is a tour de force in its analysis and re-imagining of both material and textual sources. Through her focus on early medieval saints and how they were venerated in Rome, Maskarinec provides a careful synthesis of the physical, typological and religious elements of the city, tracing its assimilation and reconfiguration of different notions of sanctity from Byzantine influences to the later practices and customs of the Carolingians. The careful attention given to sources as diverse as literary hagiography, architectural, artistic, and political history is admirable. This book fulfils amply the remit of the HSBP in its expansive treatment of sources dealing with saints and sanctity as well as its deft analysis of the cultural and historical shifts that clarified the role saints and sanctity played in shaping the medieval imagination of western Europe.”
Winner of the 2019 Sherry L. Reames Graduate Student Travel Award for Hagiographical Studies
Lacey Bonar (History, West Virginia University)
The Hagiography Society is delighted to announce that we have awarded the Sherry L. Reames Graduate Student Travel Award to Lacey Bonar (History, West Virginia University). She will present “Losing Face, Saving Grace: The Trope of Facial Disfigurement in Saints’ Lives” at the 2020 International Congress on Medieval Studies.
