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.
Education
Ph.D. New York University, Institute of Fine Arts, 1993
Books
-
-
- Rural Lives and Landscapes in Late Byzantium: Art, Archaeology, and Ethnography
- Cambridge University Press, 2015
-
- Viewing the Morea: Land and People in the Late Medieval Peloponnese
- Harvard University Press, 2013
-
-
- Thresholds of the Sacred: Art Historical, Archaeological, Liturgical and Theological Values on Religious Screens
- East and West Harvard University Press, 2007
-
- A Lost Art Rediscovered: The Architectural Ceramics of Byzantium
- Pennsylvania State University Press, 2001
-
- Beholding the Sacred Mysteries: Programs of the Byzantine Sanctuary
- University of Washington Press, 1998
Courses
SELECTED COURSES TAUGHT, UNDERGRADUATE
- Introduction to Medieval Art
- Carolingian Art
- Late Antique Art and Archaeology
- Middle Byzantine Art and Archaeology
- Late Byzantine Art and Archaeology
SELECTED COURSES TAUGHT, GRADUATE
- Art, Architecture and Ritual in Byzantium
- Hagia Sophia
- Living with the Dead in Byzantium
- The Holy Monastery of the God-trodden Mount Sinai
- Byzantine Archaeology
- Late Byzantine Art and Archaeology
- Thessaloniki: A City and Its Cultural Production
- The Byzantine Village
- The Byzantine Diaspora
Selected Links
Publications
UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture
- “UCLA SNF Center Director Sharon Gerstel Awarded Greece’s Highest Honor,” The National Herald, June 30, 2021.
- “UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center Announces Sharon E. J. Gerstel as Director,” The National Herald, November 5, 2020.
- 2019 Theodore Saloutos Award, American Hellenic Council
- 2019 Award from Hellenic Society of Constantinople
Byzantine Acoustics
- Article on “Soundscapes of Byzantium” in The Atlantic: Lafrance, Adrienne. Hearing the Lost Sounds of Antiquity. The Atlantic, February 19, 2016.
- Podcast on “Soundspaces of Byzantium” in Escape Velocity: “Acoustic Museums.”
- “Mapping the sound of Byzantine churches,” Spark with Nora Young. CBC Radio, February 28, 2016.
- “Acoustic Museums,” USC Viterbi School of Engineering Magazine, Spring 2016.
- “Professors recreate the sounds of an ancient Greek church in LA,” The National Herald, February 28, 2017.
- “Revealing the Acoustic Mysteries of Byzantine Churches, Faith and Form 49.3.
- GABAM lecture, Koc University, December 4, 2018
Thessaloniki
Research for the Greek Village
- An Interview with Sharon Gerstel, author of Rural Lives and Landscapes in Late Byzantium
- Reading Greece | Sharon Gerstel: “Byzantine History opened my eyes to a culture that has long been marginalized in our studies,” Greek News Agenda
- “Episode 4: Vasilika: A Village in Modern Greece with Prof. Sharon Gerstel and Franka Horvat,” Dumbarton Oaks Podcast, October 2020.
Academic Awards
- 2016 Runciman Award Announcement, June 2016.
- “Art historian Sharon Gerstel wins 2016 Runciman Book Prize,” UCLA Newsroom, June 15, 2016.
- ICMA Book Prize Winner: Sharon Gerstel, International Center for Medieval Art (ICMA), May 2017.
