Medieval Association of the Pacific announces the 2026 Benton-Mahoney Awards
The Medieval Association of the Pacific (MAP) is pleased to announce the winners of the 2026 Benton-Mahoney Awards in support of research and conference travel. The awards were conferred at MAP’s annual business meeting, held on Saturday, March 6, 2026.
Aurora Clark, a MA student in History at the University of Calgary, will receive $750 in travel support for her upcoming presentation, “Hamwic and the Politics of Liminality: Royal Expansion and Emporia in the Seventh- and Eighth-Century Solent,” to be presented on March 19, 2026, at the Forum zum britisch-irischen Mittelalter (FobiM) conference in Innsbruck, Switzerland.
Patricia McCall, a PhD candidate in Art History at the University of Oregon, will receive $750 in travel support for her upcoming presentation, “Crusading in Clermont: The Vision of the First Crusade in Clermont-Ferrand Cathedral,” to be delivered at the 11th conference of the Society for the Study of the Crusades and the Latin East, in Porto, Portugal, June 29–July 3, 2026.
The Benton-Mahoney Award provides travel funds for all members of the Medieval Association of the Pacific—independent medievalists and graduate students in particular—who might not otherwise receive support from institutions. The award may be used to defray costs connected with delivering a paper at any conference, especially for MAP conferences, or connected to scholarly research.
The award was named in honor of its progenitor, John F. Benton (1931–88), Doris and Henry Dreyfuss Professor of History at the California Institute of Technology and MAP President 1982–84. In 2020 the John F. Benton Award was renamed the Benton-Mahoney Award in recognition of Dhira B. Mahoney (1938–2019), Professor of English at Arizona State University, MAP President 2000-02, and tireless champion of graduate students and early-career scholars, whose financial legacy will fund the award for many years to come.
Founded in 1966, the Medieval Association of the Pacific (MAP) is an organization of university faculty, students, and independent scholars from around the Pacific Rim, including North America, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand that seeks to facilitate studies in medieval culture and history. To this end, it hosts a biennial conference in hybrid format, organizes virtual events, and issues grants and prizes. MAP prides itself on being a welcoming space for scholars ranging from emerging to emerita and working in all fields and regions of the medieval globe.
In addition to the Benton-Mahoney Award, the Medieval Association of the Pacific (MAP) recognizes outstanding scholarship in medieval studies through the Founders' Prize, for an excellent graduate student paper delivered at MAP’s biennial conference, and the Henry Ansgar Kelly Paper Prize, for publications that engage with the work of this renowned scholar.
To learn more: https://www.medievalpacific.org/