Bissera Pentcheva

Assistant Professor

Art & Art History

Yes

Medieval Art

bissera@stanford.edu

650 724 4426

TH. 2-4

Phenomenology and aesthetics, performance and ritual, medieval image theory, Iconoclasm, cult of the Mother of God.

 

 

Pentcheva's new book Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (Penn State Press, 2009) explores Byzantine tactile visuality and the sensory experience of icons. A synthesis of this research has appeared in "The Performative Icon" Art Bulletin 88/4(2006): 631-55. She has also given invited talks on this topic at Johns Hopkins University; Smith College; University of Washington; Loyola Marymount University; University of California at Santa Barbara, University of Volos, Greece; Ludwig Maximillians Universität, Munich; Max-Planck Kunsthistorisches Institut, Florence; and Institut für Byzantinistik, Österreichische Universität Wien. 

 

Pentcheva's first book, Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006), explores the origins, transformation, and imperial significance of the cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium.

 

 Bissera Pentcheva joined the faculty at Stanford in 2003 after teaching as a postdoctoral fellow at Columbia University. She received her Ph.D from Harvard in 2001 with a dissertation on the cult of the Virgin in Byzantium. She has held a number of prestigious fellowships: Dumbarton Oaks Junior Fellowship, Onassis Foundation postdoctoral fellowship, and Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship. She also taught a graduate seminar on Phenomenology of the Byzantine Icon at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, summer 2007.

 

 

Books:

 

 The Sensual Icon: Space, Ritual, and the Senses in Byzantium (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2009).

http://www.stanford.edu/~bissera/sensualicon

 

 

Icons and Power: The Mother of God in Byzantium (Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006) 

 

 

 

Recent Articles:

 

 "Raumliche und akustische Präsenz in byzantinischen Epigrammen," in Kulturhistorische Bedeutung byzantinischer Epigramme , eds. A. Rhoby und W. Hörandner (Vienna: Österreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften, 2008) forthcoming.

 

"Moving Eyes: Surface and Shadow in the Byzantine Mixed-Media Relief Icon,"  Res. Athropology and Aesthetics 53 (2009) forthcoming.

 

"The Performative Icon: Once Again" in The Byzantine World, ed. P. Stephenson (London, New York: Routledge, 2008), forthcoming.

 

"Miriam's Dance: Poetry as Movement in Byzantine Culture," in Bild, Ding, Kunst, eds. G. Wolf and N. Suthor (Munich, Fink, 2008), forthcoming.

 

"The Miraculous Icon: Medium, Fantasy, and Presence," inThe Cult of the Mother of God in Byzantium , eds. M. Cunningham and L. Brubaker (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming).

 

"The Performative Icon," The Art Bulletin 88/4 (2006): 631-55.

 

"Containers of Power: Eunuch and Reliquaries in Byzantium"Res. Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 51 (2007): 109-20.

 

"Painting or Relief: The Ideal Icon in Iconophile Writing in Byzantium," Zograf 31 (2007): 7-14.

 

"Epigrams on Icons" in Art and Text in Byzantine Culture , ed. L. James (New York/Cambridge: Cambridge University Press), pp. 120-38.

 

"The Performance of Relics" in Performing Byzantium , ed. M. Mullet (Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming).

 

"Visual Textuality: The Logos as Pregnant Body and Building," Res. Journal of Anthropology and Aesthetics 45 (2004): 225-38.