Her article, “Roman Gladiator Knives: Objectification, Mascotting, and the Material Culture of Sport in Ancient Rome,” shows how pocketknives in the shape of gladiators commodified gladiators as mascots: utile bodies rather than autonomous individuals.
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.
Justin Willson, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Art History Leadership at CWRU/CMA, has published the article “On the Aesthetic of Diagrams in Byzantine Art,” in the July issue of Speculum, the flagship journal of the Medieval Academy of America. Bringing many new primary sources to light, the essay argues for the importance of diagrams in understanding the formal qualities of Byzantine icons.
Congratulations to Sam Truman, who has been awarded both the Samuel H. Kress History of Art Institutional Fellowship and the Chateaubriand Fellowship!
Laura and Cecily are honored and elated to be the recipients of 2023 travel grants. Laura was awarded a Baker-Nord Center for the Humanities Graduate Research Grant, and Cecily was awarded one of this year’s Student Research Grants from the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA).
Justin Willson, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Art History Leadership, received a contract for Volume 4 in the series “Sources in Byzantine Art History,” entitled The Visual Culture of Late Byzantium and the Early Modern Orthodox World (c.1350-c.1669) (Cambridge University Press, 2028).
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.
The medieval art program was featured in the headline news in the Daily! The article spotlights the Graduate Association of Medieval Studies (GAMS) and the Immersive Realms app. You can read it here.
https://thedaily.case.edu/microsoft-hololens-puts-medieval-objects-into-the-hands-of-student-researchers/?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=thedaily_research
