Mapping Regional Connectivities and Their Implications

The Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies at Simon Fraser University is pleased to present Professor Sharon E. J. Gerstel, UCLA!

Join us Friday, November 7th at 2:30pm for this in person only talk at the Bennett Library, SFU Burnaby, Room 7200, titled “Mapping Regional Connectivities and Their Implications: Architectural, Epigraphic, and Art Historical Evidence from the Byzantine Southern Peloponnese”.

This talk will be moderated by Dr. Dimitris Krallis, Professor, Global Humanities.

Attendance is free. The event is open to the public but will not be webcast or recorded.

This programming is made possible thanks to the generous support of the Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF).

ABSTRACT

How does an understanding of road systems shed light on human interactions, especially in seemingly isolated settings? The study of recent paths points to underlying, historical connections across the landscape. Evidence from Byzantine church inscriptions, painting, and even standing domestic architecture further illuminates the movements of people, allowing us to question long-held ideas about networks, exchanges and “influences.”

BIOGRAPHY

Sharon E. J. Gerstel’s research focuses on the intersection of ritual and art in Byzantium. Her books include Beholding the Sacred Mysteries (1999) and Rural Lives and Landscapes in Late Byzantium: Art, Archaeology and Ethnography (2015), which was awarded the 2016 Runciman Prize by the Anglo-Hellenic League, the inaugural book prize by the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA), and the Maria Theocharis Prize from the Christian Archaeological Society in Greece. Gerstel has also edited A Lost Art Rediscovered: The Architectural Ceramics of Byzantium (with J. Lauffenburger) (2001); Thresholds of the Sacred: Art Historical, Archaeological, Liturgical and Theological Views on Religious Screens, East and West (2007); Approaching the Holy Mountain: Art and Liturgy at St. Catherine’s Monastery in the Sinai (with Robert S. Nelson) (2010); Viewing the Morea: Land and People in the Late Medieval Peloponnese (2012); and Viewing Greece: Cultural and Political Agency in the Medieval and Early Modern Mediterranean (2016). Gerstel has been the recipient of numerous awards, including a J. Simon Guggenheim Fellowship (2011-2012).

As an archaeologist, she has worked at numerous excavations in Greece, both as a field director and as a ceramics specialist. Her comprehensive study (with M. Munn) of the medieval village of Panakton appeared in Hesperia in 2003. Her publications on ceramic tiles produced in Nicomedia (modern-day Izmit, Turkey) have appeared in the Journal of the Walters Art Museum and elsewhere. Publications on Byzantine women, including empresses, village widows, and rural nuns, can be found in The Art Bulletin, the Deltion tes Christianikes Archaiologikes Hetaireieas, and the Wiener Jahrbuch für Kunstgeschichte. Gerstel’s current research focuses on the intersection of music, architecture, and monumental decoration. She is co-director, together with Chris Kyriakakis (USC) of the project “Soundscapes of Byzantium.” Research from this project has been published in Speculum, Hesperia, Gesta, and elsewhere. She is also currently spearheading the restoration of the church of Hagioi Theodoroi in Vamvaka, Mani. Her work on this project has been published in the Journal of Modern Greek Studies and has been recognized in the short documentary Blessings and Vows. She is also the Director of the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture.

MODERATOR BIOGRAPHY

Dimitris Krallis was born in Athens where he lived during his childhood, teenage and college years. At the University of Athens he studied political theory and, inspired by his professors of history, decided to risk all by applying for a graduate degree in Byzantine Studies. This took him to the University of Oxford where he studied Byzantine social and political history. After an interruption of four years dedicated to military service and to teaching at the American College of Greece in Athens, he moved to the US and the University of Michigan for his doctorate. Upon graduation he joined the faculty at Simon Fraser University where he works at the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Centre for Hellenic Studies.

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Room 7200, WAC Bennett Library, 8888 University Dr E, Burnaby, Canada