B.A. 1980, Bryn Mawr College; M.A. 1982, New York University; Ph.D. 1990, New York University
Research interests:
Late Antique, Byzantine, and Eastern Christian art and architecture
Sample courses:
Transforming Heaven and Earth: Arts of Late Antiquity and New Rome (lecture)
Byzantine Art and Architecture, 9th-15th Centuries (lecture)
Late Antiquity along the Nile: Arts of Egypt, Nubia, and Ethiopia (lecture)
Eastern Christian Art of the Middle Ages: Recent Research (colloquium)
Material Culture in Late Antiquity: Textiles (seminar)
Topics in Byzantine Art: Silks, 6th-10th Centuries (seminar)
Recent presentations:
“Silk in Byzantine Egypt,” in “‘Wonderful Things’: Byzantium through its Art,” XLII Spring Symposium of Byzantine Studies, Society for the Promotion of Byzantine Studies, The Courtauld Institute of Art and Kings College, London (March 2009)
“Clothing Bodies, Dressing Souls, Making Monks: Some Aspects of Early Monastic Habits in Egypt,” Inaugural Lecture, Institute of Fine Arts, New York University (February 2009)
Selected publications:
“Coptic and Byzantine textiles found in Egypt: Corpora,
Collections, and Scholarly Perspectives.” In Egypt in the Byzantine World,
300-700, edited by R.S. Bagnall, 137-162.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
“Reevaluating the Textiles from Karanis.”In Textiles in Situ, edited by S. Schrenk, 135-147.Riggisberg: Abegg-Stiftung, 2006.
“Arts of Christian Communities in the Medieval Middle
East.”In Byzantium: Faith and
Power, 1261-1557, edited by H.C. Evans,
415-26.New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art and Yale University Press, 2004.
Thomas, Thelma and E. Sears. Reading Medieval Images: The
ArtHistorian and the Object.Essays in Honor of Ilene H. Forsyth.Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2002.
Late Antique Egyptian Funerary Sculpture: Images for this
World and the Next.New Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2000.
Selected honors:
2009-12, Editorial Board, The Art Bulletin
2008-present, International Center of Medieval Art, Board of Directors
2008-present, Byzantine Studies Association of North America, Program Committee
2003 – 2004, J. Clawson Mills Senior Fellowship, Metropolitan Museum of Art