“There’s kind of a logic to this because, while we’re not affiliated with the Catholic Church, the Jesuit order was founded in the Renaissance,” Zecher said. “There’s this connection.”

The academic society officially moved to Fordham from the City University of New York Graduate Center in July, with offices for its staff in Faber Hall and a new headquarters for its academic journal, Renaissance Quarterly, in Walsh Library.

“We could just go off and get offices on our own but we want to be involved with academic life,” Zecher said. “We produce a journal and we run a conference and we can do that I suppose anywhere, but it makes sense to be collaborating with a university.”

The society was founded in 1954 and currently has about 5,000 members worldwide, including professors, museum curators, graduate students, and librarians.

“It’s Renaissance studies in a very large sense, so the time period our society focuses on is 1300 to 1700—all academic fields for that 400-year period. So we have art historians and literary scholars and even philosophy and history of science,” she said.

When the society agreed to move to Fordham, the University established a fellowship at Renaissance Quarterly for a graduate student to get hands-on experience with academic publishing. Subscriptions to the journal, which are available to members of the RSA and institutions, such as universities and museums, total over 10,000 in 2019.

Michael Sanders, a Ph.D. student in history with a medieval concentration, received the fellowship and serves as the book reviews manager for the journal.

“As a graduate student,” Sanders said, “you always see the finished product of journals—using them in our research—but this job is nice because you get to see what goes on behind [the scenes].”

The role also gives Sanders a chance to learn beyond his Ph.D. work.

“As graduate students, you write a dissertation—you’re focused on one subject and specialized, but with this journal, you get to kind of scope the whole field, from art history to philosophy, theology, history,” he said. “It helps you connect your own work to broader trends.”

The Renaissance Quarterly staff also includes David Myers, Ph.D., Fordham professor of history, who serves as its book reviews editor and played a role in helping bring the society to Fordham. A work-study position for a second graduate student was recently added as well.

“Having the Fordham people working on the journal really makes it feel more tied to the University, really makes them a part of it,” said managing editor Colin Macdonald, Ph.D. “You can tell [Fordham’s] a place where the humanities are not an afterthought. They’re really important and really vital and I think we feed off that.”

As the society gets settled in its new location, Zecher said there will be plenty of opportunities for partnerships between RSA and Fordham.

“We don’t want to just barge in and say, ‘here’s what Fordham should be doing in Renaissance studies,’” she said. “We want to figure out ways that we can collaborate.”

Zecher said she’s beginning to hold informal meetings with faculty to learn more about their work and the role the society can play in it.

Unrelated to the move, Heather Dubrow, the John D. Boyd, S.J. Chair in Poetic Imagination at Fordham, will be recognized by the society at its conference in Philadelphia in 2020. Dubrow will have two panels in her honor; one will focus on new directions in lyric studies and the second will be a roundtable discussion on the impact of her work in the field.

Having the RSA at Fordham benefits everyone, Dubrow said.

“Through its conferences and journal, RSA has taught me a great deal throughout my career,” she said, adding that Fordham graduate students will learn a lot from the work they’ll be doing with the society.

Zecher said she’s beginning to plan for next year’s fall board of directors meeting, which would include a symposium that students and faculty could attend at Fordham.

Both Zecher and Sanders said they hope the society’s presence on campus can enhance the University’s Renaissance-related studies and capture student interest.

“The topics that we work with are amazingly relevant and I think students might be surprised at that because they think, ‘oh the Renaissance,’” Zecher said. “I think that if students just take a look they’ll see there are some really exciting things going on.”

In 2007, after having walked the route several times, Richard Gyug, Ph.D., professor of history and medieval studies, decided to turn the pilgrimage experience itself into a means of study. He created a course titled Study Tour: Medieval Spain, which is offered through the Center for Medieval Studies.

Now, after 23 years of service to Fordham, Gyug is retiring, but not before his seventh and final pilgrimage with Fordham students along the Camino.

Having set out from Leon, Spain, on May 26, the group will walk the last 200 miles of the route, which has been traversed by pilgrims since the 10^th century. Trekking around 15 miles a day, they will reach Santiago on June 8.

In using the Camino as a living classroom, Gyug has been motivated by questions about the medieval experience.

“In doing something that people have done for a thousand years, do we understand the people of that time better?” he asked. “How much does the actual physical activity create in us a similar response?”

Stripped Down to the Essentials

The Camino is both a historical and modern phenomenon, said Gyug. For his students, it can be a rite of passage out of their daily routine, where life is stripped down to the essentials one can fit into a backpack.

“The students step across a threshold into a world with different rules. They walk for two weeks in a community, and then they make a transition back to the next stage of their lives,” he said.

As part of their journey, the students work in teams to examine different thematic topics, for instance, studying spirituality along the route, the infrastructure of the Camino itself, flora and fauna, or vernacular architecture.

They also write daily entries on the Fordham Camino blog to record their reflections on what they observe.

Over the years, Gyug has had many memorable experiences, from the elation of arriving in Santiago, to the more challenging moments of the demanding journey.

“For me it’s always a pleasure to see the student’s growth and development,” he said. “But it’s bittersweet, too, because some of them struggle.

Out of this struggle, however, Gyug has observed students make important insights about themselves and about life, often expressed in the reflections they submit afterwards.

“I remember one student writing that she couldn’t impose her will on the Camino. She’s not going to be able to shape it—it shaped her. That was very striking,” he said.

For Gyug, the emphasis on reflection that the Camino course offers fits well with Fordham’s mission and Ignatian tradition.

“The students are thinking about community within the group of students, and with others walking. It deepens self-awareness and awareness of others,” he said.

Though this is the last trip Gyug will take with students, he said he will definitely walk the Camino again. At Fordham, David Myers, Ph.D., professor of history, who has taught the class the last two years and is co-teaching it with Gyug this year, will continue the Study Tour in future years.

–Nina Heidig