Jennifer Kingsley
Lecturer, Mellon Post Doctoral Fellow
Medieval and Byzantine Art
Ph.D. Johns Hopkins, 2007

Biography
Jennifer Kingsley’s interests center on the sumptuous arts of the Middle Ages and Byzantium, especially manuscripts. Her dissertation investigated the lavishly illustrated Bernward Gospels in Hildesheim as a springboard to consider the intersection of artistic patronage, commemorative practice, episcopal identity and both virtual and actual ‘collecting’ in Ottonian Germany. She is currently revising her study for publication, while also beginning to consider further two issues encountered during her dissertation research. Struck by how the Bernward Gospels’ pictorial program presents the devout’s sensory experience of both treasury objects and the sacred as not only visual, but also tactile, she has become deeply interested in the broader issue of the theoretical and practical negotiation of touch experiences in the Middle Ages. How did medieval culture theorize touch as a response? How do medieval objects invite, deny or limit the sensory apprehension through touch? A second interest stems from encountering pictures that reproduce identifiable objects from local treasuries and centers on how both texts (inventories) and pictures present treasury objects.

Contact Information
653B Schermerhorn Hall
Tel. (212) 854-1938
email: jk2837@columbia.edu
Office Hours: Tuesdays, 5:30-6:30 and by appointment

Web Sites
Text to come.