Bits and Pieces

The Marco Institute’s 14th annual manuscript workshop, held February 1-2, 2019, explored the theme of “Bits and Pieces.” Our eight guest speakers discussed the range of problems encountered by readers of manuscript fragments: how to extrapolate missing text, how to fill the gaps in a page or a text, how to read a faded and worn leaf, how to combine separated fragments into a whole, and how to represent the fragment in a modern edition in a way that renders it legible while still acknowledging its brokenness.

Death & Dying in Medieval Judaism, Christianity, & Islam

The Marco Institute’s 16th annual symposium took place April 3-4, 2019. The symposium, organized by Professor Sara Ritchey (history), convened a group of scholars of international stature to explore how medieval people confronted processes of death and dying through striking rituals, poetry, funerary art, and institutions of communal caregiving. This symposium represents one of the nation’s first gatherings of specialists in medieval studies to examine collectively the theme of death and dying from the inter-religious perspective of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.

Marco takes the Leed(s)!

The International Medieval Congress—the second-largest gathering of medievalists in the world—takes place every July in Leeds, England. For the 2019 conference, Medieval and Renaissance Studies Lecturer Lauren Whitnah organized a Marco-sponsored panel on “Prosopography, Social Networks, and Materialities.” The session grew from research conversations between Whitnah, UT history PhD alumnus Bradley Phillis (Gardner-Webb University), and two of the Marco Institute’s 2018 Lindsay Young Visiting Regional Faculty Fellows, Kate Craig (Auburn University) and Courtney Luckhardt (University of Southern Mississippi). Dawn Seymour Klos (Trinity College Dublin), a former student of Professor Luckhardt’s, also joined the panel.