B.A., Houghton College; M.A., The Pennsylvania State University; Ph.D., The University of Chicago
Expertise: Medieval & Byzantine Art
Research & Practice Areas: Pilgrimage, Sacred Space, Mapping and Human Geography
My research explores the construction of sacred space through the arts and architecture of the Monastery of Saint Catherine at Mount Sinai, Egypt, from the 6th through the 16th centuries, focusing on significant moments of change at this important pilgrimage site. I presented an overview of the Sinai pilgrimage and the intersection of three world faiths—Judaism, Christianity, and Islam—at the Monastery of Saint Catherine for the Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery in 2018, accompanying the exhibition Sacred: Image, Text, Ritual. While my research and studies have taken me to many places (from London to Athens, Cairo to Rome, and from Venice to Istanbul), I’m pleased to call Lancaster, Pa., home and to participate in bringing world-class exhibitions on a wide range of artists and historical periods, and inclusive of diverse visual media, to the LVC campus and community.
Awards/Fellowships:
Post-doctoral Visiting Research Fellowship, Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, University of Texas at Dallas
Feitler Prize for Best Dissertation, Department of Art History, The University of Chicago
Eleanor Tufts Pre-doctoral Fellowship, Department of Art History, Southern Methodist University
Mellon Fellowship for Dissertation Research in Original Sources in the Humanities, Council on Library and Information Research, Washington, D.C.
Publications:
“‘Prolific Writing’: Retracing a Desert Palimpsest in the South Sinai,” in Exodus: Border Crossings in Jewish, Christian and Islamic Texts and Images, edited by Annette Hoffmann, (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019), 77-92.
Co-author with Jasmina S. Ćirić, “The Substance of Sacred Place: An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Locative Materiality, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut, Florence, Italy, June 20-21, 2013,” Patrimonium.MK 7, no. 12 (2014): 365-8.
Presentations:
2018 “Mount Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine: Intersections of Pilgrimage and Faith.” Suzanne H. Arnold Art Gallery, Lebanon Valley College, Annville, PA
2017 “Icon & Palimpsest: Reflections on Sinai.” Discourses of Byzantine Art, Then and Now: A Celebration of Robert S. Nelson, 43rd Byzantine Studies Conference, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN
2017 “‘Prolific Writing’: (Re)tracing a Desert Palimpsest in the South Sinai.” Medieval Environments, 34th Illinois Medieval Association Conference, Northwestern University, Evanston, IL
2016 “Folding Time and Space: Last Judgment Imagery and the Christian Oecumene in Cretan Triptychs.” Diptychs, Triptychs and Polyptychs, from the Middle Ages to Modernity, Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, University of Texas at Dallas
2016 “Topographical Images of Mount Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine: Icons of Place,” in Place and Identity in Early Modern Visual Culture, I: Constructing Sacred Connections (organizers: Madeline Rislow and Ashley Elston). Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Boston, MA
2016 “Jacopo Bassano’s Adoration of the Magi at the Kimbell Art Museum.” Fellows’ Object Talk in the Gallery, Edith O’Donnell Institute of Art History, University of Texas at Dallas
2013 “‘On the Pattern of the Original Bush’: Rocks and Relics at the Monastery of St. Catherine, Sinai.” The Substance of Sacred Place: An Interdisciplinary Workshop on Locative Materiality, Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florenz, Max-Planck-Institut, Florence, Italy
2011 “Face to Face without Shadow: Visual Culture at Sinai in the Thirteenth Century.” 37th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, DePaul University, Chicago, IL
2010 “Sinai and its Neighbors: Pursuing an expanded audience for the sixteenth-century topographical images of Mount Sinai and the Monastery of St. Catherine,” in The Mediterranean and the Past I (organizers: Rebecca Zorach and David Karmon; respondent: Cammy Brothers). Annual Meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, Venice, Italy
2010 “Relic and Icon in Sinai Pilgrimage: St. Catherine and the Crusades,” in Questioning Cultural Influence in the Medieval Mediterranean: Artistic Production in a Hybrid Culture (organizers: Karen R. Mathews and Catherine Barrett; respondents: Eva Hoffman and Lisa Reilly). College Art Association, Chicago, IL
