87 Baldwin Street, Toronto, ON  M5T 1L5  Canada

E-mail  linda.safran@utoronto.ca

Web  http://utoronto.academia.edu/lindasafran/

 

Education

•     Yale University, New Haven, CT

Ph.D. May 1988, History of Art. Dissertation title: “San Pietro at Otranto and Its Place in Byzantine Art” (advisor: Charles B. McClendon)  

M.Phil. May 1984. Oral examinations in Byzantine wall painting, Romanesque wall painting, art of Magna Graecia, Byzantine history in southern Italy

M.A. December 1982. Qualifying paper: “The Theodosian Obelisk Base (Istanbul): Its Historic, Symbolic and Artistic Implications”

 

•     University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA

M.A. May 1979, History of Art. Thesis title: “St. Luke Painting the Virgin: Sources and Manifestations of the Legend” (advisor: Charles Minott)

B.A. summa cum laude, May 1979, History of Art. Graduated with Distinction in major; Benjamin Franklin Scholar

 

 

Academic Appointments

•    Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto, ON

Associate Fellow, 2019–; Research Fellow, 2012–2019; Visiting Fellow, 2010–2012

 

•    Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou, China, Fall 2015

Graduate seminar: Art and Architecture of Medieval Sicily

Undergraduate lecture course: Introduction to “Western” Medieval Art

 

•    York University, Toronto, ON

Course director, Jewish Art and Architecture in Antiquity, January–April 2009

 

•    Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Israel

Seminar leader, “Beyond the Elite: Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Europe,” December 2017–January 2018

Visiting Scholar, September 2009–August 2010

 

•     University of Cyprus, Nicosia 

Visiting Professor, April 2010

•     University of Toronto, Toronto, ON

Associated Scholar, Centre for Medieval Studies, September 2009–

Associate Professor, Department of Art, July 2004–June 2009

Visiting Fellow, University of St. Michael’s College, 2004–2011

Undergraduate lecture courses: Byzantine Church Decoration; art history component of The Mediaeval Tradition (St. Michael's College) 

Undergraduate seminars: Late Antique Pilgrimage in the Eastern Mediterranean; Late Byzantine Art and Architecture; The Fourth Century C.E.; Art and Power; Constantinople: Topography and Ceremony; Art and Power in Berlin

Independent studies: Late Byzantine Art in the West; Gallery Mosaics at Hagia Sophia

Graduate seminars: Medieval Pilgrimage Art and Architecture; Late Byzantine Church Decoration; Late Antique Art and Architecture; Exceptional Cities of the Middle Ages: Constantinople

•     The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 

Chair, Department of Greek and Latin, September 1998–2003; Associate Professor, with tenure, February 1995–2003; Assistant Professor, September 1989–February 1995

Undergraduate lecture courses: History of Art survey, Ancient–Medieval; Greek Art and Architecture; Roman Art and Architecture; Jesus to Muhammad (University Honors Program); Islamic Art and Architecture; Art and Power; Greek and Roman Mythology

Upper-level undergraduate and graduate courses: Directed Readings in Greek and Roman Art and Architecture; Augustan Rome; Transformations in Late Antique Art; Early Medieval and Early Byzantine Art and Architecture; Western Medieval Art and Architecture; Building the Middle Ages, East and West; Medieval Pilgrimage Art and Architecture; Islamic Art and Architecture

 

•     Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC 

Research Associate, September 1989–August 1993, joint appointment with The Catholic University of America

 

Publications

•     Books

Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages: Exploring a Connected World, co-authored with Adam S. Cohen and Jill Caskey (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, forthcoming 2022)

The Medieval Salento: Art and Identity in Southern Italy (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014); awarded a Millard Meiss publication grant from the College Art Association. http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/15215.html

      Reviewed in: CAA Reviews (October 19, 2018), DOI 10.3202/caa.reviews.2018.218; Journal of Religious History 42, no. 3 (2018): 478–79; Medioevo Latino 38 (2017): 948; Medioevo Greco 16 (2016): 522–23; Speculum 91.4 (2016): 1164–65; TMR: The Medieval Review 16.08.27; Church History and Religious Culture 96 (2016): 182–87; Sixteenth Century Journal 46, no. 3 (2015): 807–9; Parergon 32, no. 2 (2015): 352–53; Catholic Historical Review 101, no. 4 (2015): 910–11; L’Idomeneo 19 (2015): 359; Orientalia Christiana Periodica 81, no. 1 (2015): 215–25; Church History 84, no. 3 (2015): 660–62; Scriptorium 69 (2015): 223–24; Comitatus 46 (2015): 296–98; H-Italy (H-Net reviews), July 2015 (www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=43196); American Historical Review 120, no. 3 (2015): 1099–1100; Journal of Interdisciplinary History 45, no. 4 (2015): 580–81; Common Knowledge 21, no. 2 (2015): 344–45; Sefer Yuhasin 2 (2014): 291–92

San Pietro at Otranto: Byzantine Art in South Italy / San Pietro ad Otranto: Arte bizantina in Italia meridionale, Collana di Studi di Storia dell’Arte 7 (Rome: Edizioni Rari Nantes, 1992)  

Reviewed in: Critica d'Arte, ser. 6, 7, nos. 11–12 (1992): 7; Arte Medievale 7 (1993): 127–29; Speculum 69 (1994): 250–52; Revue des Études Byzantines 52 (1994): 346–47; Kunstchronik 47 (1994): 760–65; Byzantinische Zeitschrift 86–87 (1993–94): 502–3; Saopstenja 26 (1994): 203–6

 

•     Edited Books / Journals

The Diagram as Paradigm: Cross-Cultural Approaches (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, forthcoming 2022): co-edited with Jeffrey F. Hamburger and David Roxburgh

Editor (with Adam S. Cohen) of Gesta, journal of the International Center of Medieval Art, 2013–18

“Confronting the Borders of Medieval Art,” ed. Jill Caskey, Adam S. Cohen, Linda Safran, special issue, Medieval Encounters 17, nos. 1–2 (2011), including jointly written “Introduction: Surveying the Borders of Medieval Art,” i–x. Also published as a separate volume: Confronting the Borders of Medieval Art (Leiden: Brill, 2011)

The Early Christian Book (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2007): co-edited with William E. Klingshirn; paperback edition, 2008.

      Reviewed in: Bryn Mawr Classical Reviews (online) 2007.09.02; Journal of Theological Studies 59, no. 1 (2008): 326–28; Journal of Ecclesiastical History 59, no. 2 (April 2008): 302–3; Catholic Historical Review 94, no. 4 (2008): 764–65; Religious Studies Review 34, no. 1 (March 2008): 44; Choice 45–4778 (May 2008)

Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998; 5th printing, 2009).

Reviewed in: Byzantinische Zeitschrift 91, no. 2 (1998): 579–80; Church History 67, no. 4 (1998): 754–55; The Medieval Review (online) 98.12.03; Greek Orthodox Theological Review 44 (1999): 699–701; Gazette des Beaux-Arts ser. 6, 133 (alt. no. 1563) (1999): 22–23; The University Bookman 39, no. 2 (Summer 1999): 29–35; The Harvest, Monastery of the Glorious Ascension 19, no. 2 (1999); Religious Studies Review 26 (2000): 91; Parergon 17, no. 2 (2000): 267–69; Orientalia Christiana Periodica 67, no. 1 (2001): 195–97; Vetera Christianorum 39 (2002): 210–11  

Editor of the series “Architectural Transformations in the Islamic World,” including Places of Public Gathering in Islam; Housing Process and Physical Form; Conservation as Cultural Survival; Architecture in Islam, Seminar Proceedings I, II, III, V of the Aga Khan Award for Architecture (Philadelphia: The Aga Khan Awards, 1980); pdf files available at www.archnet.org.

 

 

•     Chapters in Books

“Introduction: Byzantine Diagrams” and “Diagramming Byzantine Orthodoxy.” In The Diagram as Paradigm: Cross-Cultural Approaches, ed. Jeffrey F. Hamburger, David Roxburgh, and Linda Safran, 13–32 and 489–515. Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks, forthcoming 2022.

“Early Byzantine Art in China: A Test Case for Global Byzantium.” In Global Byzantium: Papers from the Fiftieth Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, University of Birmingham, 25–27 March 2017, ed. Leslie Brubaker, Daniel Reynolds, and Rebecca Darley. London: Routledge, forthcoming, 2022.

“An Inscription from Santa Maria di Cerrate, near Squinzano, Italy”; “An Inscription from the Synagogue at Gravina”; “An Inscription from the Great Synagogue at Trani”; An Inscription from San Michele Arcangelo, Masseria Li Monaci, near Copertino, Italy.” In Sources for Byzantine Art History, vol. 3, The Visual Culture of Later Byzantium (1081–ca. 1350), edited by Foteini Spingou, 2:217–21, 354–58, 359–64, 408–11. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2022.

“Remembering the Jewish Dead in Medieval Apulia and Basilicata.” In Letters in the Dust: The Epigraphy and Archaeology of Medieval Jewish Cemeteries, ed. Leonard Rutgers and Ortal-Paz Saar, 35–63. Leuven: Peeters, forthcoming 2022.

“Abstraction in the Kennicott Bible” (with Adam S. Cohen). In Abstraction in Medieval Art, ed. Elina Gertsman, 89–114. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2021.

“The Season of Salvation: Images and Texts at Li Monaci in Apulia.” In The Eloquence of Art: Essays in Honour of Henry Maguire, ed. Andrea Olsen Lam and Rossitza Schroeder, 283–99. London: Routledge, 2020.

 “A Prolegomenon to Byzantine Diagrams.” In The Visualization of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Marcia Kupfer, Adam S. Cohen, and J. H. Chajes, 361–82. Turnhout: Brepols, 2020.

 “La mise-en-page dei testi pubblici nel Salento medievale.” In “Gli uomini e le lettere: personaggi, testi e contesti della Terra d’Otranto di cultura bizantina,” ed. Alessandro Capone, special issue, Rudiae: Ricerche sul mondo classico, n.s. 3 (2017)[2018], 271–90.

“Introduzione.” In Botrugno: Chiesa dell’Assunta; La parete absidale dopo il disvelamento degli affreschi, ed. Sergio Ortese, xv–xviii. Galatina: Congedo, 2016.

“Greek in the Salento: Byzantine and Post-Byzantine Public Texts.” In Inscriptions in Byzantium and Beyond: Methods–Projects–Case Studies. Veröffentlichungen zur Byzanzforschung 38, ed. Andreas Rhoby, 227–39. Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2015.

“Deconstructing ‘Donors’ in Medieval Southern Italy.” In Female Founders in Byzantium and Beyond, ed. Lioba Theis, Margaret Mullett, and Michael Grünbart, 135–51. Vienna: Böhlau, 2013 [= Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte 60–61 (2011–12)].

“Raffigurar(si) gli ebrei nel Salento medievale.” In Gli Ebrei nel Salento, ed. Fabrizio Lelli, 241–55. Galatina: Congedo, 2013. Expanded version in Ketav, Sefer, Miktav: La cultura ebraica scritta tra Basilicata e Puglia; Catalogo della mostra (Venosa–Bari), ed. Mariapina Mascolo, 159–69. Bari: Di Pagina, 2014. 

“Betwixt or Beyond? The Salento in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries.” In Renaissance Encounters: Greek East and Latin West, ed. Marina S. Brownlee and Dimitri Gondicas, 115–44. Leiden: Brill, 2013. 

“Public Textual Cultures, A Case Study in Southern Italy.” In Textual Cultures of Medieval Italy, Essays from the 41st Conference on Editorial Problems, ed. William Robins, 115–44. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2011.

“Jewish and Greek Patronage in Apulia: Two Texts (1313/14, 1372/73) and “A Bilingual Jewish Tombstone Inscription in Oria.” In Medieval Italy: Texts in Translation, ed. Kate Jansen, Joanna Drell, Frances Andrews, 258–60, 487–89. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2009.

“The Art of Veneration: Saints and Villages in the Salento and the Mani.” In Les villages dans l’Empire byzantin, IVe–XVe siècle, Réalités Byzantines 11, ed. Cécile Morrisson and Jean-Pierre Sodini, 179–92. Paris: Lethielleux, 2005.

“Language Choice in the Medieval Salento: A Sociolinguistic Approach to Greek and Latin Inscriptions.” In Zwischen Polis, Provinz und Peripherie. Beiträge zur byzantinischen Geschichte und Kultur, Mainzer Veröffentlichungen zur Byzantinistik 7, ed. Lars Hoffmann, 853–82. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2005.

“Byzantine South Italy: New Light on the Oldest Wall Paintings.” In Byzantinische Malerei. Bildprogramme, Ikonographie, Stil; Symposium in Marburg vom 25.–29.6.1997, ed. Guntram Koch, 257–74. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2000.

“Introduction.” In Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium, ed. Linda Safran, 1–12. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998.

“Exploring Artistic Links Between Epirus and Apulia in the Thirteenth Century: The Problem of Sculpture and Wall Painting.” In Praktika Diethnous Symposiou gia to Despotato tis Epeirou, Proceedings of the First International Symposium on the Despotate of Epiros, Arta, May 1990, 455–74. Arta: 1992.

 

•     Journal Articles

“חפש את המטמון: גרפיטי בעקב המגף האיטלקי” [Hunting for Medieval Graffiti in the Salento]. In “Puglia,” special issue, Metropolis (November 2019): 78–83 (in Hebrew).

“Two Classrooms in China” (with Adam S. Cohen). In “In the Humanities Classroom, Part 2,” ed. Carolyn Bynum, special issue, Common Knowledge 24, no. 3 (2018): 375–88.

“‘Byzantine’ Art in Post-Byzantine Southern Italy? Notes on a Fuzzy Concept.” In “Fuzzy Studies: Symposium on the Consequence of Blur,” part 3,” ed. Jeffrey D. Perl, Common Knowledge 18, no. 3 (2012): 487–504.

“A Late Antique Silver Reliquary in Toronto” (with Galit Noga-Banai). Journal of Late Antiquity 4, no. 1 (2011): 3–30.

“Scoperte salentine.” Arte Medievale 7, no. 2 (2008 [2011]): 69–94.

“Cultures textuelles publiques: une étude de cas dans le sud de l’Italie.” Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 52, fasc. 3 (2009): 245–263.

“What Constantine Saw: Reflections on the Capitoline Colossus, Visuality, and Early Christian Studies.” Millennium. Jahrbuch zu Kultur und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends n. Chr. 3 (2006): 43–73. 

“Learning from Romanesque Bronze Bowls” (with Adam S. Cohen). Word & Image 22, no. 3 (2006): 211–18.

“Hercle in Washington: A Faliscan Vase at the Catholic University of America.” Etruscan Studies 7 (2000 [2002]): 51–79.

“Points of View: The Theodosian Obelisk Base in Context.” Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 34.4 (Winter 1993 [1995]): 409–35. 

“A Medieval Ekphrasis from Otranto.” Byzantinische Zeitschrift 83 (1990) [1992]: 425–27.

“Redating Some South Italian Frescoes: The First Layer at S. Pietro, Otranto, and the Earliest Paintings at S. Maria della Croce, Casaranello.” Byzantion 60 (1990): 307–33.

“A Note on Boulanger’s ‘Répétition générale du Joueur de Flûte.’” Gazette des Beaux-Arts 116 (November 1980): 185–86.

 

•     Book Reviews

Andrea Carandini with Paolo Carafa, eds. The Atlas of Ancient Rome: Biography and Portraits of the City, trans. Andrew Campbell Halavais, 2 vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2017), in Common Knowledge 26, no. 1 (2020): 162–63.

Neville Agnew, Marcia Reed, and Tevvy Ball, eds. Cave Temples of Dunhuang: Buddhist Art on China’s Silk Road (Los Angeles: Getty Conservation Institute, The J. Paul Getty Trust, 2016), in Common Knowledge 26, no. 1 (2020): 185–86.

Elizabeth S. Bolman, ed. The Red Monastery Church: Beauty and Asceticism in Upper Egypt (New Haven: Yale University Press in association with the American Research Center in Egypt, Inc., 2016), in Common Knowledge 24, no. 2 (2018): 329–30.

Jamal J. Elias, Aisha’s Cushion: Religious Art, Perception, and Practice in Islam (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2012), in Common Knowledge 21, no. 2 (2015): 333.

Helen Evans and Brandie Ratliff, eds. Byzantium and Islam: Age of Transition, 7th–9th Century (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2012), in Common Knowledge 21, no. 1 (2015): 109–10.

Paroma Chatterjee, The Living Icon in Byzantium and Italy: The Vita Image, Eleventh to Thirteenth Centuries (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014), in West 86th 21, no. 2 (2014): 293–96.

Alicia Walker, The Emperor and the World: Exotic Elements and the Imaging of Middle Byzantine Imperial Power (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), in West 86th 20, no. 1 (2013): 125–28.

Ann Marie Yasin, Saints and Church Spaces in the Late Antique Mediterranean: Architecture, Cult, and Community (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2010), in CAA.reviews, May 12, 2011 (online).

Nigel Hiscock, The Symbol at Your Door. Number and Geometry in Religious Architecture of the Greek and Latin Middle Ages (Aldershot: Ashgate, 2007), in Cahiers de civilisation médiévale 53 (2010): 200–202.

Simone Piazza, Pittura rupestre medievale: Lazio e Campania settentrionale (secoli VI–XIII), Collection de l’École française de Rome 370 (Rome, 2006), in Studies in Iconography 30 (2009): 235–38.

Gillian Mackie, Early Christian Chapels in the West. Decoration, Function, and Patronage (Toronto, 2003). In “Letters in Canada 2003,” in The University of Toronto Quarterly 74, no. 1 (Winter 2004/05): 386–87.

Maria Parani, Reconstructing the Reality of Images. Byzantine Material Culture and Religious Iconography (11th–15th Centuries) (Leiden, 2003), in TMR (The Medieval Review) on line 03.11.03            (http://hdl.handle.net/2027/spo.baj9928.0311.003)

Sharon Gerstel, Beholding the Sacred Mysteries: Programs of the Byzantine Sanctuary (College Art Association Monograph LVI; Seattle, 1999), in Speculum 77, no. 1 (2002): 176–78.

Thomas F. Mathews, Art and Architecture in Byzantium and Armenia, Liturgical and Exegetical Approaches (Variorum Collected Studies Series, 1995), in The Catholic Historical Review 83, no. 4 (October 1997): 756–57.

Susan Boyd and Marlia Mundell Mango, eds., Ecclesiastical Silver Plate in Sixth-Century Byzantium (Washington, DC, 1992), in Le Muséon 107 (1994): 397–411

Jérôme Baschet, Lieu sacré, lieu d’images. Les fresques de Bominaco (Abruzzes, 1263). Thèmes, parcours, fonctions (Paris and Rome, 1991), in Speculum 69, no. 1 (1994): 107–09.

​

Invited Lectures

2022   “Beyond Books: The Diagrammatic Mode in Byzantium,” for “Byzantium in Ankara” lecture series (Zoom)

2021   “Fingers and Frescoes of St. Catherine, from Sinai to Southern Italy,” at “Moving

Byzantium: Mobility, Microstructures, and Personal Agency” conference, University of Vienna

“Orthodoxy Underground: Rock-Cut Churches in the Medieval Salento,” Rev. Ilya Gotlinsky, Dormition of the Virgin Mary Church, Binghamton, NY; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpdwiuLIkqg (Zoom)

“When, Where, and What was Medieval Art—And Why Does It Matter?,”     Northern Illinois University, DeKalb (Zoom)

“Jewish Art in a Medieval Textbook: What’s In, What’s Out?,” JEM: Jewish  Educational Manna, London, ON

2019    “Paratexts and Other Interventions in Byzantine Manuscripts,” 12th Annual                Schoenberg Symposium of Manuscript Studies in the Digital Age,     University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

2018    “Diagramming Byzantine Orthodoxy,” Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC

2017    “Teaching Byzantine Art in China: Some Thoughts on Global Reception,” at                         “Global Byzantium,” 50th Annual UK Spring Symposium of Byzantine                                Studies, University of Birmingham

2016    “Medieval Cave Paintings Outside China,” Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing

            “Remembering the Jewish Dead in Medieval Apulia (and Basilicata),” at “Letters                      in the Dust: The Epigraphy, Archaeology, and Conservation of Medieval             Jewish Cemeteries,” Utrecht University

            “Imag(in)ing Jews in Medieval Southern Italy,” JEM: Jewish Educational Manna, London, ON

2015    “Christianity Underground: Cave Paintings in Medieval South Italy,”                                International Forum on Art History and Art Criticism,” Guangzhou                                               Academy of Fine Arts, Guangzhou, China

            “Circular Reasoning? Concentric Patterns on Middle Byzantine Floors,” Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem, and Interdepartmental Colloquium on Byzantine Studies, University of Cyprus, Nicosia

            “Imag(in)ing the Jews in the Medieval Salento,” Bar Ilan University, Ramat Gan

2014    “Art for Passover in the Medieval Mediterranean,” Canadian Institute of Mediterranean Studies, Toronto

2013    “The Medieval Salento: Art and Identity in Southern Italy,” Tomasso Lecture, Tufts University

            “Jewish Identity in Southern Italy: Medieval Times to the Present,” JEM: Jewish Educational Manna, London, ON

2012   “Late Medieval Multiculturalism and Local Identity: The Case of Vaste (Apulia),” at Kunshistorische Gesellschaft, University of Vienna

“Epiphany: Sites and Scenes of Baptism in the Orthodox World,” Malcove Collection, University of Toronto Art Museum; https://vimeo.com/52538819 

2011    “Orthodox Baptism: Sites and Scenes,” at conference on “Looking East: A           Window on the Eastern Christian Traditions of Epiphany,” Institute of    Sacred Music, Yale Divinity School

            “Art and Identity in the Medieval Salento: What Can We Learn from Vaste?”       Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto

“A Silver Reliquary at the ROM,” Sixth Annual ROM Medieval Symposium,  Royal Ontario Museum, Toronto

            “Recovering Jewish Life in Medieval Southern Italy,” Hillel Parents Group,            Toronto

2010    “Recovering Jewish Life in Medieval Southern Italy,” School of Fine Arts, Hebrew University of Jerusalem 

              “The Late Medieval Salento: Beyond ‘East’ and ‘West,’” Department of Arts,    Ben Gurion University of the Negev

            “Painted Prayers in Medieval Southern Italy”; graduate seminar on “The Social          Life of Things in the Salento”; undergraduate seminar on “Gender in            Medieval Italy,” Visiting Professor, Department of History and             Archaeology, University of Cyprus 

            “Lessons from Li Monaci,” 3rd IMAGO medieval conference, Hebrew University      of Jerusalem

            “Donation and Commemoration in Medieval Mediterranean Art,” Robert H.           Smith Memorial Conference plenary address, Department of Art History,   Hebrew University of Jerusalem

2009    “Betwixt or Beyond? Apulia in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Centuries,” for            “Colloquium on Renaissance Encounters: Greek East and Latin West,”      Program in Hellenic Studies 30th Anniversary Colloquium and             Renaissance Studies Committee, Princeton University

            “The Arts of Passover From Antiquity to Today,” Jewish Studies Program,        University of Waterloo

            “The Jews in Southern Italy, Yesterday and Today,” Limmud Toronto

2008    “Deconstructing ‘Donors,’” for international colloquium on “Female Founders in Byzantium and Beyond,” Institut für Kunstgeschichte der Universität         Wien, Vienna

            “Painted People in the Medieval Salento,” for Medieval Art History Graduate        Student Group, University of Toronto

            “Jews in Southern Italy, Then and Now,” Chabad of Oxford, University of Oxford

            “Nuove scoperte nelle chiese salentine medievali,” Museo Sigismondo     Castromediano, Lecce (Italy)

            “Gente e pratiche devozionali nella provincia di Taranto medioevale,” Sala del             Consiglio Comunale, Massafra (Italy)

2007    “People and Practices in Some Painted Churches of Southern Italy,” Johns    Hopkins University

2006    “(Un)Orthodox Liturgy in the Late Medieval Salento,” Workshop on “Art,     Liturgy, and Religious Cult in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” Ben            Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva (Israel)

            “Multiculturalism in the Medieval Salento (Southern Italy),” for the Canadian         Institute for Mediterranean Studies, Toronto

            “Jews in the Medieval Salento,” Jewish Studies Seminar, University of Toronto

2005    “Public Textual Culture in Mainland Southern Italy,” conference on Textual            Cultures of Medieval Italy, 41st Annual Conference on Editorial Problems,    University of Toronto

            “Constantine’s Eyes, or the Case for Early Christian Art History,” conference on          Early Christianity and the Academic Disciplines, Center for the Study of          Early Christianity, Catholic University of America

            “Sociolinguistics in the Salento: Medieval Art and Modern Methodology,” Fine    Art Department, University of Toronto

            “Byzantine Art, Now and Then” (with Adam S. Cohen), for Friends of the Malcove Collection, University of Toronto

2003    “Art and Identity in Medieval Southern Italy,” Dumbarton Oaks, Washington,      DC

2001    “The Art of Veneration in Some Byzantine Villages,” roundtable on Byzantine         Villages at Twentieth International Byzantine Congress, Paris

2000    “The Art of Veneration in Some Byzantine Villages,” for Early Christian Studies           Seminar, Catholic University of America

1999    “Heaven on Earth: The Art of Byzantium,” for The Smithsonian Institution,          Resident Associates Program, Washington, DC

1997    “Byzantine South Italy: New Light on the Oldest Wall Paintings,” symposium on      “Byzantinische Malerei: Bildprogramme–Ikonographie–Stil,” Universität      Marburg, Marburg (Germany)

            “Memento Domine, Mnesthiti Kyrie: Donors and Cultures in Medieval South           Italy,” at Medieval and Byzantine Studies Faculty Seminar series, The   Catholic University of America

1995    “Heaven on Earth”: Some Problems in Byzantine Church Decoration, in the       series “The Artwork as Revelation,” Department of Religion and   Religious Education, Catholic University of America

1994    “Ode on a Grecian Urn: A Red-Figure Vase at CUA,” for the Friends of the Library, Catholic University of America

            “The Legacy of Ancient Civilizations: The Origins of Western Art,” eight-week         course  for The Smithsonian Institution, Resident Associates Program,            Washington, DC

1993    “Points of View: The Obelisk Base of Theodosius in the Hippodrome of            Constantinople,” Medieval and Byzantine Studies Faculty Seminar, 25th       Anniversary Series, The Catholic University of America

            “The Theodosian Obelisk Base in Context,” at Fachschaft des Christlich-       Archäologisches Seminar, Kunsthistorisches Institut, Universität Bonn       (Germany)

1991    “The Image of St. Peter in South Italy,” at Medieval and Byzantine Studies       Faculty Seminar series, The Catholic University of America

            “The Age of Faith,” course (four weeks) taught for The Smithsonian Institution,          Resident Associates Program, Washington, DC

1990    “Exploring Artistic Links Between Epirus and Apulia: The Problem of Wall         Painting,” at First International Symposium on the Despotate of Epiros,        Arta (Greece)

            “Epiros and South Italy: Exploring Artistic Links in the Thirteenth Century,” at           Dumbarton Oaks, Washington, DC

1987    “San Pietro at Otranto: Problems of Program and Function,” Dumbarton Oaks,        Washington, DC

             “San Pietro at Otranto: The Program of the Second Fresco Layer,” colloquium     on “Italian Church Decoration of the Middle Ages and Early Renaissance:             The Problem of Regional Traditions” at Charles S. Singleton Center for             Italian Studies, The Johns Hopkins University, Florence (Italy) 

1984    “The Evil Sea: Exegesis and Iconography in Some North Italian Mosaic             Pavements,” at The Frick Collection–Institute of Fine Arts Symposium on the History of Art, New York City

 

Conference Papers

2018   “Byzantine Diagrams,” at “The Diagram Paradigm: Byzantium, the Islamic World, and the Medieval West,” Dumbarton Oaks Byzantine symposium, Washington, DC

2017    “Diagramming Byzantine Orthodoxy,” at the Medieval Academy of America    annual meeting, Toronto

2016    “A Prolegomenon to Byzantine Diagrams,” at “The Visualization of Knowledge      in Medieval and Early Modern Europe,” Jerusalem

2015    “La mise-en-page dei testi pubblici nel Salento medievale, at “Gli uomini e le             lettere: personaggi, testi e contesti della Terra d'Otranto di cultura    bizantina,” Università del Salento, Lecce

2014     “Jews and Arts in Medieval Apulia,” at Corcoran Chair Conference, Boston College, Brookline, MA

2013     “Greek Cryptograms in Southern Italy (and Beyond),” at Forty-eighth International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo; online at http://art-hist.edel.univ-poitiers.fr/index.php?id=73   

2012     “Greek and Latin (and a Canoodling Couple) in a South Italian Church,” for the 38th Byzantine Studies Conference, Brookline, MA

2009     “Finding Meaning in Fragments: The ‘Chiesa Greca’ in Lecce,” Canadian        Conference of Medieval Art Historians, Carleton University, Ottawa

              “‘Byzantine’ Art in Post-Byzantine South Italy: Reassessing the Lingua Franca      in Apulia,” for ICMA-sponsored session, 97th Annual College Art        Association Conference, Los Angeles; abstract published

2007     “Unorthodox Spaces in Orthodox Southern Italy,” Canadian Conference of Medieval Art Historians, University of Guelph

2006     “Talking Walls: Graffiti in Southeastern Italy,” for the 32nd Byzantine Studies       Conference, St. Louis; abstract published

2004     “Some Problems of Art and Identity in the Medieval Salento,” Canadian         Conference of Medieval Art Historians, Toronto

1999     “Donors in Medieval Southern Italy,” in session “Cross-Cultural Dimensions in           Architecture and Images,” Medieval Academy of America Annual         Meeting, Washington, DC

1997     “Donors in South Italian Wall Paintings,” at the Twenty-third Annual Byzantine       Studies Conference, Madison, Wis.; abstract published

             “Varietas populorum nostro regno subiectorum: Ethnicity and Wall Painting in          Medieval South Italy,” at College Art Association annual conference,          session on “Medieval Art and Ethnic Identity,” New York City; abstract          not published due to CAA error 

1994    “The Genesis Frieze at Trebizond,” at Twentieth Annual Byzantine Studies       Conference, Ann Arbor, Mich.; abstract published

1993    “Women at Work in the Palaeologan Period,” in panel “Constructing Gender in         Byzantium,” at Nineteenth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference,          Princeton; abstract published

1992    “The Theodosian Obelisk Base in Context,” at Eighteenth Annual Byzantine       Studies Conference, Urbana-Champaign; abstract published

            “Old Testament Imagery in Mainland South Italy,” at Twenty-seventh            International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo

1991    “The Image of St. Peter in South Italy,” at Eighteenth International Byzantine          Congress, Moscow; abstract published. Co-chair of session “Art History: Painting”

1989    “New Finds in South Italy,” at Fifteenth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference,    Amherst, Mass.; abstract published

1986    “San Pietro at Otranto: The Late Thirteenth-Century Frescoes,” at Seventeenth       International Byzantine Congress, Washington, DC; abstract published 

1983    “Discrimination in Decoration: Theodulf’s Oratory at Germigny-des-Prés,” at          First Medieval Studies Graduate Students’ Conference, Brown University

 

 

Fellowships and Awards

•     Major Awards

Getty Foundation, Connecting Art Histories collaborative grant for “Global and Postglobal Perspectives on Medieval Art and Art History,” University of Toronto–Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts, November 2014–June 2017 

Senior Fellow, Israel Institute for Advanced Studies, Jerusalem, 2014–15

EURIAS (European Institutes for Advanced Studies) Senior Fellowship, Jerusalem, 2014–15

SSHRC (Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada) Standard Research Grant, 2005–9 

Dumbarton Oaks Fellowship in Byzantine Studies, 2002–3

J. William Fulbright Scholar (Research, Italy), September 1995–May 1996

Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowship in Byzantine Studies, 1987–88

Samuel H. Kress Foundation Fellow in the History of Art (Travel, Italy and Greece), 1985–86

Samuel H. Kress Foundation, summer stipend for dissertation research, 1982 

 

•     Other Awards

Dumbarton Oaks, Visiting Scholar, April–May 2018

College Art Association, Millard Meiss publication grant, Fall 2012

Dumbarton Oaks, one-month postdoctoral research stipend, March 2012

Catholic University of America: Alpha Delta Gamma “Instructor of the Month” for November 1997, February 2002

Hirschman Family Fellowship, Washington, DC: toward study in Israel, July 1998

Catholic University of America, Faculty Research Grants-in-Aid: toward editorial expenses for Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium, summer 1997, 1995; toward travel in Turkey, summer 1993; publication subventions, 1989, 1990

Samuel H. Kress Foundation: publication subvention, 1993 (toward Heaven on Earth: Art and the Church in Byzantium)

Pontificio Istituto Orientale, Rome: to attend 75th Anniversary International Scholarly Congress, “The Study of the Christian East in its Institutions and in its Thought,” June 1993

Catholic University of America, Early Christian Studies Program: toward travel in Turkey, summer 1993; to attend 27th International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 1992; to attend 18th International Byzantine Congress, Moscow, August 1991

Samuel H. Kress Foundation: publication subvention, 1989–90 (toward San Pietro at Otranto: Byzantine Art in South Italy)

Yale University: Sumner McKnight Crosby Fellowship, 1986–87, 1984–85; Caroline Foundation grant, 1985; University Fellowship, 1981–84

Università degli studi di Bologna: to attend XXXII Corso di Cultura sull’Arte Ravennate e Bizantina, Ravenna, March 1985

Leopold Schepp Foundation, New York: toward graduate study, 1981–83

 

 

Editorial Work (see also Edited Books/Journals)

Freelance line editor and copy editor, 1988–

Editor (with Adam S. Cohen) of Gesta, the journal of the International Center of Medieval Art, 2013–18 

Editorial Board member: “De Là Da Mar,” Lupo Editore, Copertino (Italy); “Byzantina Lupiensia,” Centro Italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo (Spoleto) and Dipartimento di Beni Culturali, Università di Lecce (Italy)

Former Editorial Board member: West 86th: A Journal of Decorative Arts, Design History, and Material Culture

Former consulting editor: Journal of Late Antiquity

Manuscript reviewer for: Brill, Catholic University of America Press, Oxford University Press, Princeton University Press, Routledge; Art Bulletin, Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Gesta, Immediations, Journal of Late Antiquity, Journal of Raman Spectroscopy, Memoirs of the American Academy at Rome, Speculum, Toronto Quarterly Review, Traditio

Review Editor for Art History, TMR, The Medieval Review (online), 1996–2000

Editor of seminar proceedings, Aga Khan Award for Islamic Architecture, Philadelphia; four volumes, June 1979–August 1981

Part-time copy editor for Condé Nast Traveler, Spy Magazine, New York Magazine, 1988–89

Managing editor, Building Economics, 1987–88

 

​

Other Professional Service

•     Organizational

Co-organizer (with J. Caskey, A. S. Cohen, and A. R. Levine) of CCMAH conference, Toronto, March 2022

Co-symposiarch (with J. Hamburger and D. Roxburgh) of Dumbarton Oaks Spring Symposium on “Diagrams in Cross-Cultural Perspective,” April 2018

ICMA (International Center of Medieval Art): Board of Directors, 2019–21; Programs and Lectures Committee, 2019–21; Nominating Committee, 2005–6

Chair of Italian Art Society sessions at International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 2012, 2013, 2014

Co-organizer (with J. Caskey, A.S. Cohen, J. Wollesen) of CCMAH conference, Toronto, March 2011

Byzantine Studies Association of North America: President, 2007–08; Governing Board, 1995–99, 2006–10; Treasurer, 1997–98; Chair, Local Arrangements Committee, 33rd Byzantine Studies Conference, Toronto, 2007; Chair, Nominating Committee, 2010; Dumbarton Oaks Liaison Committee, 1995, 1998

Medieval Academy of America annual conference, co-organizer (with J. Caskey and A. S. Cohen) of two sessions on “Rethinking the Canonical Texts and Topographies of Medieval Art,” April 2007

Co-organizer (with S. Gerstel), session on “Ethno-Art History? Understanding the Art of Pre-modern Cultures Through Ethnography and Ethnohistory,” College Art Association annual conference, New York City, February 2003

Presider, session on “Byzantium and the West” at Thirty-third International Congress of Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo, May 1998

Organizer and moderator of lecture series The Arts of Byzantium, for the Resident Associates Program, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, January–March 2000

Organizer and moderator of lecture series Sailing to Byzantium: The Sacred Core of a Great Civilization, for the Resident Associates Program, The Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, October–December 1991 (co-sponsored by The Walters Art Gallery and the Embassy of Greece)

 

•     Advisory Boards

CUA Studies in Early Christianity

           

•     Web-related

Over 250 (illustrated) essays for website that accompanies Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages: Exploring a Connected World (artofthemiddleages.com, live in summer 2022)

Interactive map of Constantinople: http://individual.utoronto.ca/safran/Constantinople/Map.html

Developed and maintained (2007–10) new BSANA website, www.bsana.net

 

•     Assessment

External assessor for: Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada; Israel Science Foundation; European Institutes of Advanced Studies; Central European University; French Institutes for Advanced Study; Dan David Society of Fellows, Tel Aviv University

Supervisor, Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies: Shannon L. Wearing, “Power and Style: The Liber Feudorum Maior and the Court of Alfonso II” (LMS candidate, 2019–20); Giovanni Gasbarri, “Depiction of Idols and Idolatry in Byzantine Art” (LMS candidate, 2016–17); co-supervisor: Christopher Bonura, “Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius” (LMS candidate, 2021–22); Chris Lakey, “The Invention of Rilievo: Relief and The Sculptural Imagination in the Middle Ages,” LMS candidate, 2013–14)

Ph.D. committees: Elizabeth Moss, “Framing the Holy: Revetments on Late Byzantine Icons” (University of Toronto, 2016); Dana Katz, “A Changing Mosaic: Multicultural Exchange in the Norman Palaces of Twelfth-Century Sicily” (University of Toronto, 2016); Alison Locke Perchuk, “The Basilica at Castel S. Elia, Italy: History, Decoration, Aesthetics” (Yale University, 2009)

External examiner: M. Laura Marchiori, “Art and Reform in Tenth-Century Rome: The Paintings of S. Maria in Pallara,” Queen’s University, Kingston, ON (Ph.D., Oct. 2007); Kostis Kourelis, “In the Footsteps of a Marginal Discipline: Settlement Archaeology in the Medieval Peloponnese,” Pontifical Institute of Mediaeval Studies, Toronto (LMS, 2007)

 

•     Consultant

For Conrad Boyce, Jewel on the Hill: The Story of Ontario’s Thomas Foster Memorial (Uxbridge, ON: Blue Heron Books, 2014)

 

Professional Development

“Contacts with Greek Culture in the Middle Ages,” working group, Jackman Humanities Institute, University of Toronto, 2020–21

 

“Roots and Routes 2014: Digital Scholarship and the Premodern Mediterranean,” summer institute on digital humanities on the theme of “Sociability and Materiality,” University of Toronto, May–June 2014 (http://serai.utsc.utoronto.ca/rrsi2014)

 

Exhibitions

“People, Piety, and Sacred Power in the Eastern Mediterranean,” photo exhibition at the Institute of Sacred Music, Yale University Divinity School, October 5, 2011–March 2, 2012, New Haven (co-curated with Vasileios Marinis)

 

Small exhibition (with checklist of objects) of late antique and Byzantine objects at the Malcove Collection, University of Toronto Art Centre, for 2007 Byzantine Studies Conference, Toronto

 

 

Professional Memberships

Byzantine Studies Association of North America; Canadian Committee of Byzantinists; College Art Association; IMAGO: Israeli Association of Visual Culture in the Middle Ages; International Center of Medieval Art; Italian Art Society; Medieval Academy of America  

 

 

Personal

U.S. and Canadian dual citizenship