Other Related Activities

Benedictine Studies Sessions are sponsored by the Forum at the annual International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI. The congress is a worldwide gathering of scholars that takes place every May, and the ABF is one of many organizations that sponsor sessions. Each organization decides its themes for the following year at the time of the meeting. In late summer a call for papers is circulated and all sessions have to be organized and confirmed by October. Thus anyone wishing to participate should consult the congress website during the designated time frame or, if someone has a particular area of interest and would like to propose a topic for a future session, they may contact the ABF organizer:

Sr. Colleen Maura McGrane, O.S.B.
Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration
[email protected]

The 62nd International Congress on Medieval Studies will be May 13-15, 2027. The American Benedictine Forum and the American Benedictine Review will be co-sponsoring sessions on Benedictine and Cistercian Monastic Profession and Benedictine Art and Architecture. If interested, please apply by submitting an abstract of your proposed paper by September 15, 2026.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Benedictine Art and Architecture

This session invites new research pertaining to the architecture of medieval Benedictine monasteries, the art of Benedictine monks and nuns, and art which portrays Benedictine monks or nuns.

CALL FOR PAPERS: Benedictine and Cistercian Monastic Profession

The ritual of monastic profession described in RB 58.17–29 took on different nuances in different monastic communities. This session invites papers revealing evidence of how monastic profession occurred in different monastic communities as evidenced in customaries, cartularies, vitae, liturgical documents, chronicles, commentaries, and other monastic documents. Possible topics include the profession ritual, monastic promises, monastic dispossession, the suscipe, the petitio, and the monastic habit.