2006 MAHS Graduate Student Presentation Award
The MAHS Graduate Student Presentation Award is granted to the best paper presented by a graduate student at the MAHS annual conference. Candidates are nominated by their panel chairs and the winning paper is selected by a committee of MAHS board members. The prize is generally a book in the winner's field of interest in art history.
The paper selected for the award at the 2006 conference in Dallas was by April Jehan Morris, a graduate student at Southern Methodist University, for her paper entitled "Balanced on a Blade: Images and Ideals of Templar Identity." It was presented on the panel "Forming Identity in Medieval Art" chaired by Pamela Patton of Southern Methodist University.
Morris's paper discussed the iconography of the mid-twelfth century frescoes at the chapel of the Knights Templar in Cressac (Charente, France), about which very little had previously been written. She showed how the images of Charlemagne, St. George, St. Michael, an unknown bishop, and Frankish warriors reinforced the dual secular and spiritual identities of the Templars as men of both warfare and prayer. Morris articulately and convincingly placed these Romanesque paintings within the context of the Templars' crusading ideals and communal activities. Members of the awards committee praised the paper for being "clear, well organized and jargon-free" and for providing an "original interpretation of the chapel's iconography, rather than rehashing other scholars' work." The Midwest Art History Society is honored to be able to support and encourage such excellent work by graduate students.