Research Expertise and Interest

late antique art, Byzantine art, gender, representations of Roman imperial power, the emperor Constantine, the Virgin Mary, Roman art and visual culture, ancient Mediterranean cities, textiles, ivories, mythology in Byzantine art, romantic love in antiquity and the middle ages

Research Description

Diliana Angelova is a historian of Ancient Mediterranean and Byzantine art and visual culture. All of her intellectual work seeks to advance three basic goals: to excavate the deep continuities between the pagan and the Christian eras; to offer a more meaningful integration of the female gender in large historical questions and narratives, partly through appeal to material culture; and thus to challenge the entrenched male- and literary-centered reconstruction of historical events and processes. In her writing she pursues this intellectual program through a combination of ambitious arguments and fresh, exacting reinterpretations of sources: texts, monuments, insignia, titles, buildings, coins, and artwork in a variety of media.