Annual Marco Symposium

: 2010 Symposium

: 2017 Presenters

: 2017 Roundtable

: 2016 Symposium

: 2017 Symposium Lunch

The annual Marco Symposium is held every year in late March or early April. The Symposium brings 10 leading experts in their field to the University of Tennessee for two days of talks on that year’s theme. A round-table discussion by all the participants concludes the weekend.

The Symposium is Marco’s signature event of the year, and typically attracts members of the larger Knoxville community in addition to students and faculty at UT and scholars from across the region. The theme of the Symposium changes each year. Faculty who are interested in submitting a proposal should contact marco@utk.edu

2018 Symposium: Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World

April 6-7, 2018
UT International House Great Room

In the last few years of the seventh century, the Marwānid Reforms established Arabic as the administrative language of the Umayyad Caliphate. Coins, inscriptions, and papyri subsequently attest the use of Arabic in caliphal and local administration. Despite the centrality of Arabic as a sacred language to Muslims, the language of the Qurʾān, it was appreciated across religious boundaries such that Christians and Jews quickly began composing and engaging texts in Arabic. Arabic adorns monuments, manuscripts, and clothing, attesting to its broad appeal and high aesthetic value.

Yet despite its centrality, Arabic did not spread evenly or quickly throughout the entire Islamic world. Even though Arabic became a commercial and religious language from Central Asia to the Iberian Peninsula, the populations of many provinces continued to write and converse in other languages such as Persian, Armenian, Coptic, and Syriac, to name a few. This symposium situates the history of Arabic and Arabization within a broader setting of linguistic diversity in the Islamic world in three ways. First, it seeks to understand multilingualism in an ethnically and religiously pluralist environment, including through engagement with studies of the pre-Islamic Near East. Second, it explores the way that communities produced, employed, and transformed Arabic in their own settings. Third, it contributes to the ongoing discussion of textual and oral transmission of narratives and historical accounts between the various languages of the Islamic world.

Lodging for the 2018 Symposium:

We have set aside a small block of rooms at the Hilton Garden Inn Knoxville/University for people attending the 2018 Symposium. The hotel is located next to campus, approximately one block from the UT International House, where most Symposium events will take place. A limited number of queen rooms are available at the rate of $129/night. To book, call the Hilton Garden Inn at 865-437-5500 and ask for group code MAA, or follow this link to book online: http://hiltongardeninn.hilton.com/en/gi/groups/personalized/T/TYSKNGI-MAA-20180405/index.jhtml?WT.mc_id=POG. The special room rate will be available until March 15th or until the group block is sold out, whichever comes first.

Past Symposia

	2017 Marco Symposium Carolingian Experiments
	2016 Marco Symposium Rome: Beyond the Discourse of Renewal
	2015 Marco Symposium ‘Cry Havoc!’: War, Diplomacy and Conspiracy in the Middle Ages and Renaissance
	2014 Marco Symposium Reconceiving Pre-Modern Spaces
	2012 Marco Symposium Grounding the Book: Readers, Writers, and Places in the Pre-Modern World
	2011 Marco Symposium Gardens, Real and Imagined
	2010 Marco Symposium The Building Blocks of France
	2009 Marco Symposium Humanism and Its Economies
	2007 Marco Symposium Saints & Citizens: Religion and Politics in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance
	2006 Marco Symposium The Book of Travels: Genre, Ethnology, Pilgrimage from 1250-1650 2006 Symposium Papers 2006 Symposium Speakers
	2005 Marco Symposium Interactions and Images: Cultural Contacts Across Eurasia, 600-1600 2005 Symposium Papers 2005 Symposium Speakers
	2004 Marco Symposium Spectacle and Public Performance in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 2004 Symposium Papers 2004 Symposium Speakers
	2003 Marco Symposium Books and Readers in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance 2003 Symposium Papers 2003 Symposium Speakers
	2002 Marco Symposium Scripture and Pluralism: The Study of the Bible in the Sectarian Worlds of the Middle Ages and Renaissance 2002 Symposium Papers 2002 Symposium Speakers