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.
In May and June of 2022, Elina Gertsman was the invited professor at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales (EHESS) in Paris, where she offered several lectures, participated in the seminars of the international project « Arts et Intelligences du Silence », and led discussions with doctoral students in the Groupe d’anthropologie historique du long Moyen Âge. She used this occasion to do extensive research at the Bibliothèque nationale de France; travel to Bourges, Tours, and Amiens; and hold meetings with curators and conservators at several key museums, including the Louvre.
The EHESS (School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences) is a graduate-only research institution that has a unique standing in the world of research and higher education in France. It hosts scholars from all over the world, trains students up to PhD level in all disciplines of the humanities and social sciences, and — as part of an extensive global academic network — occupies a central position in French intellectual life. Prof. Gertsman will return to the EHESS as an invited professor for two more years.