Congratulations to our very own Dr. Justin Willson, who was just awarded the 2023 Emerging Scholar Prize by the Society for Historians of East European, Eurasian, and Russian Art & Architecture (SHERA) for his article “On the Aesthetic of Diagrams in Byzantine Art,” which was published in Speculum in July. The judges called the article “a tour de force, drawing on an impressive command of multiple languages, theological traditions, texts, and images.’”
Congratulations to our very own Professor Elina Gertsman for her appointment as Distinguished University Professor, the highest distinction granted to faculty at CWRU. Professor Gertsman is not only the youngest faculty member at CWRU to ever be awarded this title—she is also the first professor from our department and the second woman in all of the humanities. Read more and see more photos by clicking below!
On July 4, 2023, Prof. Elina Gertsman delivered the annual Medieval Academy of America lecture at the International Medieval Congress in Leeds, UK. Titled “Somatic Entanglements,” the plenary explored the ways that zoocephalic images in Hebrew manuscripts stage a wide variety of complex visual arguments about likeness and difference, and about humanity and animality. This lecture serves as the Academy’s showcase for the important work being done by scholars in North America. One part of Prof. Gertsman’s lecture formed the basis for her forthcoming article in Art History, the flagship journal of the Association for Art History.
Congratulations to Dr. Elina Gertsman, professor of medieval art and Archbishop Paul J. Hallinan Professor in Catholic Studies II, on winning the 2023 Otto Gründler prize for The Absent Image: Lacunae in Medieval Books. Given annually, the Otto Gründler Book Prize recognizes a monograph on a medieval subject that the selection committee determines has made an outstanding contribution to the field. Authors from any country are eligible, and nominations are accepted from readers and publishers. This is not the first honor for The Absent Image, which received the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award from College Art Association in 2022.
On Friday, September 30, Reed O’Mara presented a paper on the Golden Haggadah at the VI Forum Kunst des Mittelalters in Frankfurt, in the session organized by Professor Gertsman and sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art. Speakers came from Austria, Israel, and the US to discuss the intertwinement of olfaction and memory in medieval material culture. The joint program was also represented by Dr. Lutz who organized a session on the Cleveland’s Table Fountain.
