The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies

04/21/2026

We're pleased to announce our Marco Summer Language Program is returning, and registration is NOW OPEN!

Our non-credit classes run for six to eight weeks starting May 26, and are held entirely on Zoom, so you can join us from anywhere in the world! This year, we're pleased to offer FIVE courses: Beginner/Review Latin, Intermediate Medieval Latin, Advanced Medieval Latin, Beginner/Review Syriac, and Intermediate Syriac.

The fee for the program is $500, with a discounted rate of $250 for in-state students in Tennessee, but it is COMPLETELY FREE OF CHARGE for UTK students, faculty, and staff!

For more information and to apply, visit marco.utk.edu/summerlanguages/ !

03/24/2026

We're pleased to announce our 2026 annual Marco Symposium to take place April 10-11!

The topic of the 21st annual Marco Symposium is The Roland Tradition: From History to Legend, From King Charles to Stephen King, organized by Pascale Drouet (Université de Poitiers), Matthew Bryan Gillis (History), and Anne-Hélène Miller (Riggsby Director). This Symposium explores the dynamic tradition of the eponymous hero from The Song of Roland. Scholars of literature and languages, history, music, film, art history and religion examine numerous manifestations of Roland from his medieval beginnings as Charlemagne’s brave but betrayed paladin to Stephen King’s famous gunslinger, Roland Deschain, from The Dark Tower series. This year's Symposium keynote will be delivered by Professor Matthew Gabriele (Virginia Tech), on the topic “Roland Between a Medieval Scribe and a Modern King: Medieval Holy Warrior to Modern Gunslinger." It will take place on April 10 at 5:30pm in the Lindsay Young Auditorium at Hodges Library.

This year’s Symposium celebrates the partnership between the Marco Institute and the Centre d’études supérieures de civilisation médiévale (CESCM) at the Université de Poitiers, a research institute similarly dedicated to interdisciplinary studies of Middle Ages (literature, history, art history, philosophy, musicology, archaeology, etc.)

For full information and schedule, please visit marco.utk.edu/symposium !

02/23/2026

The Marco Institute is seeking excellent Latin instructors to teach Beginner/Review Latin for our Marco Summer Language Program! For full information, visit tiny.utk.edu/SummerLanguages2026CFA !

02/19/2026

Check out this new story from the University of Tennessee College of Arts & Sciences on our interdisciplinary Medieval & Renaissance Studies (MRST) undergraduate program!

Medieval and Renaissance Studies dive into the past to unveil the big-picture foundations of modern culture across the globe. The interdisciplinary Medieval and Renaissance Studies (MRST) program gives students an in-depth study of world events and cultures of the rich historical period stretching f...

01/31/2026

Due to the inclement weather, we have decided in the interest of everyone's safety that today's sessions of the Marco Manuscript Workshop will take place online via Zoom. If you were planning to attend and would like the Zoom information, please email the Marco Institute Program Coordinator at [email protected].

01/20/2026

The Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville, invites applications for a full-time position of Teaching Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Program Coordinator of Medieval and Renaissance Studies (MRST) beginning August 1, 2026. This is a career-track (NTT) position with teaching (75%) and service (25%) responsibilities. The teaching load is 2 sections of one course per semester (12 hours per week). The service component corresponds to MRST programmatic needs, such as advising, mentoring, outreach, and curriculum development. Interest in teaching a methods course for MRST majors and/or leading a summer study abroad program (for additional pay) is considered a plus.

Appointment to this position will be for an initial two-year term and is renewable contingent upon evidence of excellence in teaching and service duties. The position has promotional potential and comes with full benefits and additional funds available to assist with research, travel, and professional development.
The Marco Institute is an internationally-acclaimed center for the study of the history and culture of the premodern world (c.300-1700). With our rich programming schedule of lectures, workshops, and symposia; multiple fellowship opportunities for faculty and graduate students; undergraduate major and minor and graduate certificate; and annual premodern language training program, we pursue the research and teaching of the early periods at the highest levels. Our award-winning faculty represents a wide range of disciplines and periods – drawing from over a dozen departments and programs spanning from late antiquity to the early modern period and from Europe and the Mediterranean to East Asia and the Americas – and we boast special strengths in late antique history and religion and in medieval and early modern literature. Our interdisciplinary approach and collaborative enterprises contribute to the intellectual life of the UT campus, the Knoxville community, and beyond.

Qualifications
PhD in Medieval Studies or any field related to premodern studies (i.e., History, Literature, Languages, Religious Studies, Musicology, Art History, etc.) is required by the time of appointment. Candidates must be able to demonstrate excellence in teaching at the college level, familiarity with current student-oriented pedagogy, including in a large classroom, and with the use of technology to enhance learning. The program seeks candidates with expertise in teaching an expansive global, interdisciplinary perspective in premodern studies. The Candidate must also demonstrate potential for successful academic programmatic development and mentoring as well as scholarly expertise.

Application Instructions
Review of applications will begin on February 16, 2026 and will continue until the position is filled. The University of Tennessee is seeking candidates with the ability to contribute in meaningful ways to achieving the mission of the Marco Institute and the University.

Please submit to Interfolio (https://apply.interfolio.com/180018) your complete dossier including the following:

• Letter of Application
• CV
• Names and contact information for three references
• Two-page maximum Statement of Teaching Philosophy (must address teaching pre-modern studies from a global and interdisciplinary perspective and teaching large classes)

Finalists will be asked, in addition, to share a sample syllabus in preparation for the Zoom interview.

For inquiries, please contact the chair of the Search Committee, Dr. Anne-Hélène Miller ([email protected]).

11/03/2025

DEADLINE EXTENDED! APPLY BY NOVEMBER 14!

The 21st annual Marco Manuscript Workshop will take place January 30–31, 2026, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The workshop is organized by Charles Kuper (Classics) and R. D. Perry (English) and is hosted by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. This year we're pleased to announce Roy Liuzza (Emeritus Professor of Medieval Literature), one of the co-founders of the Manuscript Workshop, will join us as respondent!

This year’s workshop explores the issues of “destruction and preservation.” As anyone working in the premodern period knows all too well, culture is fragile. It is beset by forces that would rather destroy it, sometimes intentionally, as when authorities make certain things verboten or seek to suppress them, or when changing attitudes in revolutionary moments call upon the present to attack the past. These forces, though, are sometimes unintentional, as when the natural processes of decay or the vagaries of history damage texts and artifacts as they make their way through time. Fortunately, we can meet these forces of destruction with acts of preservation, whether using new technologies to uncover what time has obscured, or simply by the act of reading and transcribing work anew. In this way, any work with a manuscript is an act of preservation. This workshop focuses on how we understand these acts of destruction and preservation. What tools or strategies can be brought to bear on damaged texts? How do we read around acts of destruction? What are the possibilities or limitations on our capacity to preserve these fragile cultural documents? Examples might include work with light-, animal-, or chemically-damaged books; how to handle intentional acts of destruction, like the removal of illuminations or cutting up manuscripts; texts that time has rendered illegible or fragmentary; technologies and strategies for recovering deliberate acts of erasure or unintended destruction; and efforts to identify fragmented materials and return them to their proper place. How can we read what history has tried to destroy? As always, we welcome presentations on any aspect of this topic, broadly imagined, or on any other aspect of manuscripts, epigraphy, and the history of writing.

The workshop is open to scholars and students in any field (Art History, Classics, English, History, Languages, etc.) who are engaged in paleography and codicology or any other aspect of manuscript studies, textual editing, or epigraphy. Individual 75-minute sessions will be devoted to each project; participants will be asked to introduce their text(s) and context(s), discuss their approach to working with their material, and exchange ideas and information with other participants. As in previous years, the workshop is intended to be more like a class than a conference; participants are encouraged to share new discoveries and unfinished work, to discuss both their successes and frustrations, to offer practical advice and theoretical insights, and to work together towards developing better professional skills for textual and codicological work. We particularly invite the presentation of works in progress, unusual problems, practical difficulties, and new or experimental models for studying or representing manuscript texts. Presenters will receive a $500 honorarium for their participation. This year, we’re pleased that, Roy Liuzza, Professor Emeritus of Medieval Literature and co-founder of the Marco Manuscript Workshop, will serve as a respondent for all the papers.

The extended deadline for applications is November 14, 2025. Applicants are asked to submit a current CV and a two-page abstract of their project to both Charles Kuper and R. D. Perry via email to [email protected] and [email protected].

The workshop is also open at no cost to scholars and students who are interested in sharing a lively weekend of discussion and ideas about manuscript studies. Further details will be available later in the year; please contact the Marco Institute at [email protected] for more information.

09/16/2025

Tomorrow evening (Wednesday, September 17), we are pleased to host the 22nd annual Marco Institute Riggsby Lecture on Medieval Mediterranean History & Culture. This year's speaker is Bissera V. Pentcheva (Victoria and Roger Sant Professor in Art, Stanford University), speaking on "Icons of Sound: Chant & Recitation in Hagia Sophia." The lecture will take place at 5pm in the Lindsay Young Auditorium at Hodges Library, and is free and open to the public!

ABSTRACT
What is an image? In Western culture we associate it with representation–the mimetic image– where the portrait is in a different ontology (essence) from the sitter: paint on canvas versus the actual person. Byzantium in the interior of its Great Church – Hagia Sophia – produced a totally different understanding of image: the methexic icon. The methexic image partakes in the essence of the prototype. In this case, the essence is divine breath that inspirits matter and makes it alive. In Genesis 2:6 Adam becomes a methexic icon of God (eikōn tou Theou in Greek, imago Dei in Latin), when the Lord breathes in him, transforming his inert body made out of clay into a living being.

The interior of Hagia Sophia with its immense volume and reflective surfaces of marble and gold mosaics produces extremely reverberant acoustics. Chant and recitation mobilize this wet sound to draw attention to breath and inspiriting which engenders methexic iconicity. This talk will explore two main manifestations of the methexic eikon tou Theou: the first focuses on the interaction of sound and light in the interior. The second explores how the melodic design of the chants and the structure of recitations make the reverberation the focus of perception. Here the emphasis will be on the use of melismas (singing many notes to a syllable) in the liturgical chants and the integration of long pauses in the recitation of the Gospel texts that together draw attention to reverberation: the gradual dissipation of residual sonic energy below the threshold of human audibility.

Bissera V. Pentcheva is the Victoria & Roger Sant Professor in Art at Stanford University. Her innovative work on acoustics, art, and music has redefined the field of Byzantine architecture and is now expanding into Western medieval art. Her work is informed by anthropology, music, and phenomenology, placing the attention on the changing appearance of objects and architectural spaces. She has published extensively on these subjects, and her 2017 book, Hagia Sophia: Sound, Space and Spirit in Byzantium, received the 2018 American Academy of Religion Award for excellence in historical studies.

09/10/2025

The 21st annual Marco Manuscript Workshop will take place January 30–31, 2026, at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. The workshop is organized by Charles Kuper (Classics) and R. D. Perry (English) and is hosted by the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies.

This year’s workshop explores the issues of “destruction and preservation.” As anyone working in the premodern period knows all too well, culture is fragile. It is beset by forces that would rather destroy it, sometimes intentionally, as when authorities make certain things verboten or seek to suppress them, or when changing attitudes in revolutionary moments call upon the present to attack the past. These forces, though, are sometimes unintentional, as when the natural processes of decay or the vagaries of history damage texts and artifacts as they make their way through time. Fortunately, we can meet these forces of destruction with acts of preservation, whether using new technologies to uncover what time has obscured, or simply by the act of reading and transcribing work anew. In this way, any work with a manuscript is an act of preservation. This workshop focuses on how we understand these acts of destruction and preservation. What tools or strategies can be brought to bear on damaged texts? How do we read around acts of destruction? What are the possibilities or limitations on our capacity to preserve these fragile cultural documents? Examples might include work with light-, animal-, or chemically-damaged books; how to handle intentional acts of destruction, like the removal of illuminations or cutting up manuscripts; texts that time has rendered illegible or fragmentary; technologies and strategies for recovering deliberate acts of erasure or unintended destruction; and efforts to identify fragmented materials and return them to their proper place. How can we read what history has tried to destroy? As always, we welcome presentations on any aspect of this topic, broadly imagined, or on any other aspect of manuscripts, epigraphy, and the history of writing.

The workshop is open to scholars and students in any field (Art History, Classics, English, History, Languages, etc.) who are engaged in paleography and codicology or any other aspect of manuscript studies, textual editing, or epigraphy. Individual 75-minute sessions will be devoted to each project; participants will be asked to introduce their text(s) and context(s), discuss their approach to working with their material, and exchange ideas and information with other participants. As in previous years, the workshop is intended to be more like a class than a conference; participants are encouraged to share new discoveries and unfinished work, to discuss both their successes and frustrations, to offer practical advice and theoretical insights, and to work together towards developing better professional skills for textual and codicological work. We particularly invite the presentation of works in progress, unusual problems, practical difficulties, and new or experimental models for studying or representing manuscript texts. Presenters will receive a $500 honorarium for their participation. This year, we’re pleased that, Roy Liuzza, Professor Emeritus of Medieval Literature and co-founder of the Marco Manuscript Workshop, will serve as a respondent for all the papers.

The deadline for applications is November 1, 2025. Applicants are asked to submit a current CV and a two-page abstract of their project to both Charles Kuper and R. D. Perry via email to [email protected] and [email protected].

The workshop is also open at no cost to scholars and students who are interested in sharing a lively weekend of discussion and ideas about manuscript studies. Further details will be available later in the year; please contact the Marco Institute at [email protected] for more information.

09/08/2025

We're pleased to announce a call for applications for the 2025-26 Lindsay Young Visiting Regional Faculty Fellowship program!

Thanks to the generosity of Lindsay Young and the Aslan Foundation, this fellowship program helps us bring scholars from Tennessee, Appalachia, and neighboring regions to Knoxville to make use of the late antique, medieval, renaissance, and early modern resources held at the university’s libraries and the Marco Institute’s Riggsby Library and to take part in the intellectual life of the Marco community.

Fellowships are open to scholars with terminal degrees at any institution of higher education in the region, as well as credentialed independent scholars; preference may be given to faculty teaching at institutions in the state of Tennessee. Junior and non-tenure track faculty are encouraged to apply. The fellowship is typically held for one to four weeks in the spring semester or early summer, and includes a stipend and travel expenses.

Applications are due by October 27, 2025. For full information and application guidelines, visit marco.utk.edu/lyfellowship or email [email protected].