Dear colleagues and friends,

Autumn leaves are falling and the holiday season is imminent as we send this Newsletter to the press. Our members are busy as ever, and there is much news to report.

We have been honored this year with a generous gift from the Paul and Anne van Buren Fund of the Maine Community Foundation in support of our Fellowships for Scholarly Research, Publication and Travel. The donation comes in memory of Anne Hagopian van Buren (1927-2008), a respected scholar of medieval and early Netherlandish art and a founding member of HNA. Her husband, Rev. Paul van Buren, a noted theologian, died in 1998. For a tribute to Anne's life and scholarship, please see the obituary written by Elizabeth Moodey for the November 2008 issue of the HNA Newsletter (archived on our website). Anne's last important project resulted in a beautiful catalogue and exhibition at the Morgan Library in New York, Illuminating Fashion: Dress in the Art of Medieval France and the Low Countries. The show closed on September 4, 2011, but the on-line version can still be seen at: www.themorgan.org/collections/works/IlluminatingFashion/default.asp This donation secures the immediate future of our fellowship program, which has already provided subsidies for a variety of important books and other scholarly projects by our members. Applications are accepted until December 1 each year. Please see the notice below and on our website (under Opportunities) for details of the 2012 competition.

You will shortly be receiving voting instructions for this year's elections for the Board of Directors. We are grateful to Dagmar Eichberger, Matt Kavaler, and Anne Woollett for their service as Board members over the past four years. Like the Republican Party, we have a plethora of eager volunteers: the ballot will list eleven candidates for three open Board positions. Please be sure to cast your electronic vote! As usual, the winners will be announced and will take office at our members' meeting in February.

The current issue of the HNA Review of Books contains a rich array of book reviews, for which we thank both our reviewers and our field editors, all of whom have kindly volunteered their time and expertise. After nine years, Jacob Wisse has retired as field editor for fourteenth- and fifteenth-century topics to concentrate on other responsibilities. We are grateful to Jacob for such long and valuable service. Henry Luttikhuizen has stepped in as interim editor until a formal appointment can be made at the spring Board of Directors meeting.

The annual conferences of our sister societies are enriched this year by numerous sessions featuring chairs or speakers who are HNA members. Among these, we are especially proud that at the Sixteenth-Century Society in Fort Worth in October, not one but two plenary lectures were given by HNA members: Diane Wolfthal and current Board member Shelley Perlove. At the College Art Association in Los Angeles in February, please join us for the HNA-sponsored session chaired by Ann Jensen Adams, and for our festive annual reception and members' meeting, scheduled for Friday, Feb. 24, 5:30 to 7:00 in the Santa Barbara Room of the Westin Hotel. And wherever you go to speak, research, or network with colleagues, please spread the word that HNA is always happy to welcome new members!

Met vriendelijke groeten
Stephanie