Chaundler Manuscript, Oxford c.1461-65. Oxford, New College MS 288, second frontispiece.
The 2013 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America will take place April 4-6 and will be hosted by the University of Tennessee, the Marco Institute for Medieval and Renaissance Studies and the Sewanee Medieval Colloquium. It will be held in downtown Knoxville, Tennessee, in the heart of the Tennessee Valley and at the foothills of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
The meeting will feature nearly sixty sessions from a wide range of disciplines and methodologies based around the theme of regions and regional identity.
Plenary speakers will include Christopher de Hamel (Donnelley Fellow Librarian of Corpus Christi College, Cambridge), Jan Ziolkowski (Arthur Kingsley Porter Professor of Medieval Latin at Harvard University and Director of the Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection), and Maryanne Kowaleski (Joseph Fitzpatrick S.J. Distinguished Professor and Director of Medieval Studies at Fordham University).
This year’s CARA session will be chaired by Patrick J. Geary (Professor of Western Medieval History at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton) and will focus on the topic, “A New Age of Exploration: Scholars and Digitized Manuscripts.” Participants will include Claudia Fabian (Head of Manuscripts and Rare Books Department at the Bayerische Staatsbibliothek), Charlotte Denoël (Curator of medieval manuscripts at the Bibliothèque nationale de France), Fr. Columba Stewart (Executive Director of the Hill Museum and Monastic Library) and William Stoneman (Florence Fearrington Librarian of Houghton Library at Harvard University).
All sessions, lectures, meetings and the reception and banquet on Friday evening will be held at the Hilton Knoxville. The opening reception will be held at the Knoxville Museum of Art, a five-minute walk from the Hilton. The closing reception will be held at the Sunsphere, which was designed for the 1982 World’s Fair and offers striking views of the city and its surroundings. It too is a short walk from the hotel.
Participants can also register for optional tours that offer further regional enrichment. In addition to local excursions Thursday morning, a trip is planned for Sunday morning to the acclaimed Museum of Appalachia, with its original pioneer and early twentieth-century barns, cabins, and thousands of hand-made artifacts. More information will soon be available at the dedicated online registration page.
Accommodations are available at the Hilton (http://www3.hilton.com/en/hotels/tennessee/hilton-knoxville-KNXKHHF/index.html) as well as at the nearby Holiday Inn-World’s Fair Park (http://www.holidayinn.com/hotels/us/en/knoxville/tysec/hoteldetail), both newly renovated full-service hotels. Both hotels are within easy walking distance of the gracious fountains and lawns of the World’s Fair Park as well as the cafes, bars, restaurants and art galleries that fill Knoxville’s downtown area, historic Market Square, and the Old City. Hotel reservations can now be made via the following customized group reservation links: the Hilton Knoxville (http://goo.gl/VOFVK); the Holiday Inn-World’s Fair Park (http://goo.gl/WGhPs).
Conference visitors may also wish to extend their visit to East Tennessee to experience the Great Smoky Mountains National Park (the most visited national park in America), the spectacular scenery of the Cumberland Gap, or the family-friendly attractions in Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge. Knoxville itself will be celebrating its annual Dogwood Arts Festival, when the area is in full bloom; and musicians, artists, and craftspeople at local fairs and festivals will be sharing the culture typical of this region.
The Marco Institute will provide a complimentary shuttle service at regular intervals on Thursday and again on Friday morning from the nearby McGhee Tyson airport to the Hilton and Holiday Inn Hotels.
Complete registration information as well as table reservation forms for publishers are forthcoming and will be accessible beginning January via the Marco Institute’s website at http://web.utk.edu/~marco under “2013 Annual Meeting of the Medieval Academy of America” and at http://www.medievalacademy.org/.
Book exhibitors should call or email the Institute directly with any questions in advance of the registration period.
To advertise in the print program, please email info@themedievalacademy.org.
For additional details, please contact us either per phone at 865.974.1859 or email marco@utk.edu. We look forward to welcoming our colleagues to the Medieval Academy meeting in Knoxville in April!
