MEDIEVAL ACADEMIC DISCUSSION GROUPS

by Edwin Duncan

Here is a listing of medieval academic discussion groups you may want to join along with the addresses of the listservers that carry them. Remember that if you are sending a message for the other subscribers to read, don't send it to the listserver but to the name of the network followed by the node address for the listserver. Thus, once you've already joined Ansax-l and want to send a message to its members, you will address it to ansax-l@wvnvm.wvnet.edu, not to listserv@wvnvm.wvnet.edu.

Annotations for some of the networks appear in the paragraphs below the list.



NETWORK:  LISTSERVER ADDRESS:             SUBJECT AREA:

AARHMS-L  listproc@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu   Academy of Historians
                                            of Medieval Spain

ANSAX-L   listserv@wvnvm.wvnet.edu        Anglo-Saxon Studies

ARTHURNET listserv@morgan.ucs.mun.ca      Arthurian Studies

CHAUCER   listserv@listserv.uic.edu       Chaucer and Medieval Lit.

DEREMI-L  listserv@ukanaix.cc.ukans.edu   Medieval Military History
	  
EARLYM-L  listserv@helios.edvz.univie.ac.at   Early Music 

EARLYMEDNET-L  majordomo@cf.ac.uk         Early Medieval Studies
                                               (300-700 a.d.)

EMEDCH-L  listproc@usc.edu                Early Medieval Chinese
                                                Studies

ENGLISC   listserv@morgan.ucs.mun.ca      Composition in Old English
                                               (in Old English)

GERLINGL  listserv@postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu  Older Germanic Languages 
                                               (to 1500)

HEL-L     lp2@ebbs.english.vt.edu         History of the English
                                               Language

INTERSCRIPTA listserv@morgan.ucs.mun.ca   Directed Medieval
                                               Discussions

MDVLFOLK  listserver@lists.acs.ohio-state.edu  Medieval Folklore
                                                   Studies

MDVLPHIL  mdvlphil-subscribe@egroups.com  Medieval Philosophy and
          (web: http//www.egroups.com)       Political Thought

MEDART-L  listserv@listserv.utoronto.ca   Medieval Art 

MEDFEM-L  listproc@u.washington.edu       Medieval Feminist Studies

MEDGER-L  listproc@csuohio.edu            Medieval German Studies

MEDGAY-L  listserv@ksuvm.ksu.edu          Medieval Gay Studies 

MEDIAEVISTIK maiser@listserv.ngate.uni-regensburg.de  Medieval German
                                                Studies (in German)

MEDIBER   liststar@humnet.ucla.edu        Medieval Iberian Studies

MEDIEV-L  listproc@ukans.edu              Medieval History

MEDIEVALE listproc@uqam.ca                Medieval History (in French) 

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION  mailbase@mailbase.ac.uk    Medieval Religion

MEDLITERACY-L listserv@uclink.berkeley.edu    Medieval Literacy

MEDSCI-L  listserv@brownvm.bitnet             Medieval Science 

MEDTEXTL  listserv@postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu    Medieval Languages
                                                 and Literature    

NUMISM-L  listserv@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu Medieval (& Ancient)
                                                   Numismatics

OLD-IRISH  old-irish-list-request@eskimo.com  Old (& Middle) Irish
                                              Philology & Literature

OLDNORSENET    listproc@vinga.hum.gu.se         Old Norse Studies

PIERS     listserv@catfish.valdosta.peachnet.edu Piers Plowman Studies

PERFORM	  listserv@iubvm.ucs.indiana.edu      Medieval Performing Arts

ROBINHOOD-L  Majordomo@galileo.cc.rochester.edu  Robin Hood Studies

SIEGE     listserv@morgan.ucs.mun.ca          Medieval Siege Weaponry

TEACHMEDLIT-L  listserv@uwplatt.edu	      Teaching Medieval Literature

TMR-L     mailserv@listserv.cc.wmich.edu      Medieval Book Reviews 

ANSAX-L is the discussion group for ANSAXNET, the Anglo-Saxon Network. It has over 600 members from fifteen or twenty different countries and, as one would expect from such a large membership, has a fairly high volume of mail. Discussions cover not only Old English language and literature, but also Anglo-Saxon archeology, history, philosophy, and the arts. As with other networks, one also runs across calls for papers, job listings, announcements of new journals, new computer services, and the like.

ARTHURNET, a network devoted to all subjects relating to King Arthur and the knights of the round table, has apparently replaced an older and less successful one called CAMELOT, an English network.

CHAUCER, the discussion group for Chaucernet, is, like Ansaxnet, consistently active in terms of mail. It generally confines itself to Chaucer studies, although related fourteenth-century works such as Piers Plowman and Sir Gawain and the Green Knight also get discussed here. Some of the pedagogical discussions on this network can be especially helpful.

EARLYMEDNET-L, a new discussion group for early medieval studies, is relatively inactive. At least in the initial stages of its existence, it has seemed to have more of an archeological bent to its discussions.

EARLYM-L, a discussion group for those interested in early music, is a relatively high-volume network with postings from musicians both inside and outside academe.

ENGLISC is a moderated, discussion group dedicated to composition in Old English. That does NOT mean all postings need be in the ealde spraec, but can be in modern English so long as they focus on the how to's of composing in Old English.

GERLINGL, a discussion group for older Germanic language studies, is a low-volume group, but some good information is presented on it from time to time. If one has interests in this area, then one may wish to subscribe to it in addition to a related higher volume group like Ansax-l.

HEL-L, a discussion group devoted to studies in the history of the English language, is primarily but not exclusively pedagogical. Postings are infrequent with bursts of activity (i.e., 3-6 messages per day) followed by periods of relative silence.

MDVLPHIL, devoted to medieval philosophy and socio-political issues, does not have many postings.

MEDFEM-L is a fairly high-volume discussion group which covers a wide range of issues related to medieval feminist studies.

MEDGER-L is a very low volume discussion group for medieval German studies on all topics besides linguistics. Messages here are typically few and far between.

MEDIAEVISTIK is a new discussion group devoted to medieval German texts and culture. Postings are all in German. For more information, consult the Mediaevistik home page at http://www.uni-bayreuth.de/departments/aedph/mediaevistik.htm

MEDIBER is a discussion group devoted to medieval Iberian literatures, languages, histories, and cultures. It is fairly active. Many of its postings are in Spanish.

MEDIEVALE is a medieval history network from Canada whose postings are all in French.

MEDIEVAL-RELIGION is a forum for discussions related to religious life and thought in Europe from late antiquity to the early modern period. Because it uses a mailbase listserver, the command for joining it is
join medieval-religion firstname lastname
(where firstname is your firstname, etc.) Its archives may be accessed at the Mailbase Web Page (http://mailbase.ac.uk).

MEDTEXTL, the discussion group for medieval languages and literature, also has a large number of messages. In contrast to ANSAX-L and CHAUCER, it has more postings for continental languages, literature, and the arts, and perhaps for that reason has a rule that any postings or quotations in any language other than English include translations along with the originals. This can be a real help for, say, a Germanic scholar trying to follow a conversation quoting medieval Italian or for a Romanticist trying to decipher something from Old Norse.

OLDNORSENET is a discussion group devoted to Old Norse history, literature, and philology. It does not have a high volume of postings.

TMR-L, the Medieval Review (formerly known as BMMR, the Bryn Mawr Medieval Review) is, as its name implies, devoted to the review of books on medieval topics. Members are not only automatically sent reviews of new books as they become available but may also retrieve older reviews from the archives. They may also contribute their own reviews to the network.


RELATED ACADEMIC DISCUSSION GROUPS


BMR-L     majordomo@brynmawr.edu        Medieval & Classical Book
                                                Reviews

BYZANS-L  listserv@mizzou1.missouri.edu   Byzantine Studies

CELTIC-L  listserv@irlearn.ucd.ie       Celtic Studies

CUSCA-L   listproc@cornell.edu          Society of Creative Anachronism
                                          Medieval Reconstructionists

ESPORA-L  listserv@ukanvm.cc.ukans.edu  Spanish and Portuguese 
                                          Historical Studies

FICINO    listserv@epas.utoronto.ca     Renaissance Studies

FRANCEHS  listserv@uwa.edu.au           French Historical Studies

GAELIC-L  listserv@irlearn.ucd.ie       Gaelic Studies

GRMNHIST  listserv@usc.edu              German Historical Studies
	                                   (from 800 a.d.)

HUMANIST  listserv@brownvm.brown.edu    Studies in the Humanities

LATIN-L	  listserv@psuvm.psu.edu	Latin Language & Studies

LT-ANTIQ  listserv@univscvm.csd.scarolina.edu    Studies in Late
                                                    Antiquity

MAPHIST   listserv@harvarda.harvard.edu  Map History Studies

MYSTIC-L  listserv@uconnvm.uconn.edu    Studies in Mysticism

PHILOSOP  listserv@vm1.yorku.ca         Studies in Philosophy

REED-L    listserv@epas.utoronto.ca     Records of Early English
                                          Drama & Related Topics
   
RENAIS-L  listserv@ulkyvm.louisville.edu  Renaissance History

SHAKSPER  listserv@epas.utoronto.ca     Shakespeare Studies 

WELSH-L   listserv@irlearn.ucd.ie       Welsh Language & Studies

Of these related discussion groups, perhaps the one of most general interest would be the first one, Humanist. Devoted to studies in the humanities, Humanist is a little different from the others in that its editors screen the messages and then group them by topic before sending them out. Thus, if you belong to Humanist, you may not get any mail at all for a few days, and then go in and find ten or fifteen messages at once. So even though Humanist has over a thousand members, its volume is not as high as Ansax-l, Chaucer, or Medtextl, but because its postings are screened, the quality of the messages is generally high.

I will give no additional explanation of the other groups listed here except to say that the last one, BMR-L, is the Medieval Review combined with the Bryn Mawr Classical Review. So if you are a classicist as well as a medievalist, you might prefer to subscribe to this network rather than just the Medieval Review.

This document is the property of Edwin Duncan. All rights reserved. It may be distributed as long as it is done entirely with all attributions to the author. Commercial distribution is prohibited. Portions of this document are copyrighted by the Medieval English Newsletter.