Elizabeth S. Bolman
Elizabeth S. Bolman is Chair of the Department of Art History and Art, and Elsie B. Smith Chair in the Liberal Arts. She engages with the visual culture of the eastern Mediterranean in the late ancient and Byzantine periods. Professor Bolman is best known for her work in Egypt, in which she has demonstrated the vitality of Christian Egyptian art and a new understanding of the nature of artistic production there in the early Byzantine period. She edited and was the principal contributor to the award-winning Monastic Visions: Wall Paintings in the Monastery of St. Antony at the Red Sea (Yale University Press and the American Research Center in Egypt, 2002) and to The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt (Yale University Press and the American Research Center in Egypt, 2016). This recent book is the product of over a decade-long multidisciplinary project that she founded and directed, which included cleaning and conservation of the Red Monastery’s spectacular paintings. She is the recipient of fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, Fulbright program, National Endowment for the Humanities, Dumbarton Oaks, American Research Center in Egypt, and United States Agency for International Development.
Recent Department News
50th Annual Cleveland Symposium: Moments, Intervals, Epochs
Please join us for the 50th Annual Cleveland Symposium, Moments, Intervals, Epochs: Time in the Visual Arts. This year’s symposium will take place at the Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall on Friday and Saturday, November 22-23, 2024! Both as a physical dimension and a subjective...
Worlds of Byzantium: Religion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval Near East, co-edited by Prof. Elizabeth S. Bolman
We are delighted to announce the publication of Worlds of Byzantium: Religion, Culture, and Empire in the Medieval Near East, co-edited by Prof. Elizabeth S. Bolmanwith Scott F. Johnson and Jack Tannous! Although not yet available in hardcopy in the US, it can be accessed in its digital version here. Worlds of Byzantium offers a new...
Tracing Jewish Histories
Save the date for a two-day symposium titled Tracing Jewish Histories: The Afterlives of Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts, Judaica, and Architecture! Co-organized by Reed O’Mara and Laura Feigen, this symposium will take place in London at The Courtauld Institute of Art on May 19th and 20th. It will include scholars...
Congratulations to Alex Kaczenski on joining LACMA!
We are delighted to announce that Alex Kaczenski, a doctoral candidate in medieval art, just started her new position as the Assistant Curator of European Painting and Sculpture at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art! Alex joins LACMA from the Norton Simon Museum, Pasadena, where she has been a curatorial assistant. LACMA’s vast European painting collection comprises works ranging from the twelfth to the early twentieth century. In her role as Assistant Curator of European Painting and Sculpture, Alex will be responsible for collection research and development through exhibitions, publications, and acquisitions.
Cosmic Ecologies Podcast released!
What divides the animal and the human? Do animals form families? What do images of animals in Hebrew manuscripts signify? Consider these questions and more in this episode of the Multicultural Middle Ages Podcast, sponsored by the Medieval Academy of America and produced by Jonathan Correa-Reyes, Logan Quigley, Will Beattie, Reed O’Mara, and Loren Lee. This episode features Elina Gertsman, David Shyovitz, Julie A. Harris, Sara Offenberg, and Beth Berkowitz in conversation with Reed. Click on the link to hear the episode on the Multicultural Middle Ages website or click here for the direct link on the podcast’s RSS feed.
Medieval Book Club Meeting: October 29!
Join us for our next book club meeting of the year to discuss the fabulous Laurus (Lavr), a tale of a young healer's journey towards Jerusalem through pestilence-ridden Europe, across temporal expanses and vast geographies. Redolent of medieval Russian folklore, the story explores questions of faith and loss, framed...
Doctoral Candidate Arielle Suskin participated in the American Numismatic Society’s Eric P. Newman Graduate Seminar in Numismatics
This summer, doctoral candidate Arielle Suskin participated in the American Numismatic Society's Eric P. Newman Graduate Seminar in Numismatics. Arielle researched a fascinating series of coins minted by leaders of the First Jewish Revolt against the Roman Empire (66-73 CE), which use agricultural imagery associated with the Jewish harvest...
Joint program profiled in Cleveland Art
The joint program’s exciting projects have been highlighted in the museum’s members’ magazine. Read more here on the current and upcoming exhibitions and the Mellon short-term fellows program!
Recently, PhD candidates in medieval art Sam Truman and Reed O’Mara attended the opening of Lumen: The Art and Science of Light at the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles! This expansive show explores the role of light in Judaism, Christianity, and Islam across the long Middle Ages. Sam worked on the show and the accompanying catalogue when she was an intern in the Getty’s medieval manuscripts department—the very same department where Reed finds herself as an intern this year! The catalogue includes Prof. Gertsman’s essay on medieval concepts of darkness.