The 2026 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America was quite the convivium for current and past Case Western Reserve University medievalists! Hosted by the Five College Consortium, the conference took place on the campuses of Amherst College and the University of Massachusetts Amherst on March 19-21, 2026.
Dominique (Nikki) DeLuca (PhD, 2020), Lecturer in Art History in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Vermont, discussed medieval illuminators’ interpretations of classical texts in her talk “Philomena and Echo: Medieval Images of Rupture and Repetition.” Rebekkah Hart, PhD candidate in medieval art and Intern at the J. Paul Getty Museum in the Sculpture and Decorative Arts Department, considered color and its lack in her presentation “Similar Dissimilarities: Color and Grisaille in Manuscripts of Speculum Humanæ Salvationis.” Cecily Hughes, PhD candidate in medieval art and Curatorial Research Assistant in Medieval Art at the Cleveland Museum of Art, took listeners on an epic journey through the wilds of Scandinavia with her paper “Measure of a Saint: Size, Movement, and Meaning in St. Olaf Pilgrim Badges.” And Rachel Sweeney, second-year PhD student in medieval art, presented “Aberrant Pagans, Devout Clerics: The Pictish Papil Stone and the Hybridization of the Human Body.”
Lauren Maceross (Art History MA, 2013), Curatorial Fellow of Rare Books and Manuscripts at the Walters Art Museum, who just successfully defended her dissertation at John Hopkins University with Prof. Gertsman as one of her readers, came to connect with old CWRU friends and meet new ones. Ana Wawersik (Art History and Biology BA, 2025), now an MA student in medieval art at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, was also in attendance to support her alma mater and the wonderful friends she made during the many medieval art history classes she took at CWRU.
Congratulations to all of the presenters and their supporters!
Nikki DeLuca, Rebekkah Hart, and Cecily Hughes
Rachel Sweeney, Cecily Hughes, Ana Wawersik, and Rebekkah Hart
Nikki DeLuca presenting “Philomena and Echo”