Annual Marco Symposium

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

2019 Symposium: Death and Dying in Medieval Judaism, Christianity, and Islam

Friday & Saturday
April 5-6
Great Room, International House (1623 Melrose Ave.)
The University of Tennessee, Knoxville

In recent years, approaches to death and dying have become a subject of increasing concern both to scholars and the public. As medical advances in the western world have prolonged lifespans, fundamental questions of ethics and ontology emerge. Which bodies, which lives, will receive expensive interventions and who has the authority to make such decisions? When extending life via automated machinery, where does humanity end and robotics begin? And at the most basic level: what does it mean to die well, to make peace with one’s transition from life to death, from community to invisibility? There is now a cottage industry of books, TEDtalks, and even “death cafes,” dedicated to fostering conversation about this subject that so many of us simply seek to avoid, fear to confront.

The 2019 annual Marco symposium will convene a group of scholars of international stature to explore these questions from the perspective of deep religious history. Our premodern predecessors confronted processes of death and dying by elaborating 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. They will present research on such topics as hospital foundations, bedside care, prayers for the dead, memorials, dissection, and reliquaries. Their approaches to the dead and the dying have much to inform our own culture about what it means to confront this ultimate reality that unites all humans, past and present, near and far.

Program Information:

Click here to view a PDF version of the full 2019 Symposium program.

Featured Speakers:

Registration Information:

The Marco Symposium is free and open to the public.

There is no official registration required, but it would help us to know that you are planning to come so that we can get a better head count and can print you a name tag. Please email our Program Coordinator, Dr. Katie Hodges-Kluck, at marco@utk.edu.

Lodging for the 2019 Symposium:

For out-of-town guests attending the Symposium, the Marco Institute has set aside a small block of rooms at the Four Points by Sheraton Knoxville Cumberland House Hotel for the nights of April 4th, 5th, and 6th at a discounted rate of $109/night.

To make a reservation, visit:
https://www.starwoodmeeting.com/events/start.action?id=1809283434&key=2117A5C

This group rate will be available until March 15, 2019 (or until filled).

Guest Parking Information:

Visitor parking is located in the Volunteer Hall Garage (1545 White Ave.). Further details about UT visitor parking are available at the Parking & Transit Services website.

Free street parking is available in the neighborhoods around campus (e.g. Fort Sanders), but cannot be guaranteed. Guests can also get to campus via the free trolley from downtown.

The campus map is available online here.

Past Symposia

	2018 Marco Symposium Navigating Language in the Early Islamic World
	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