Overview
With faculty appointments in History of Art and Classics, I study the cultures of the Mediterranean from antiquity to the present, with a particular focus on Byzantine art. My first book, Cosmos and Community in Early Medieval Art, traced the reception of ancient astronomical imagery in the Byzantine, Frankish, and early Islamic states. It received the Charles Rufus Morey Book Award from the College Art Association and the Karen Gould Prize in Art History from the Medieval Academy of America. My book-in-progress is about the Byzantine "Oracles of Leo" and their reception in early modern Europe. Here's a to a talk that I gave about this project. I publish regularly on the history of scholarship and the city of Constantinople, and have edited multi-author volumes on Hagia Sophia, the history of Byzantine studies, the archaeology of neighborhoods, and antiquarianism.
My research has been supported by fellowships from CASVA, the DAAD, IAS Princeton, KHI Florence and the Society for the Humanities. At Cornell, I was Director of Graduate Studies first in Classics and then in History of Art. Outside Cornell, I have been President of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America (2018-20), and I currently chair the Gennadius Library Program Committee for the American School of Classical Studies at Athens (2024-26).
Publications
Books:
Authored:
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2017).
(co-author, with Robert G. Ousterhout) (Istanbul: Cornucopia Books, 2016).
Edited:
(co-editor, with Emily Neumeier) Edinburgh Studies on the Ottoman Empire (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024). (Read the .)
(co-editor, with Mirela Ivanova) (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2023). (Read the .)
(co-editor, with Felipe Rojas and Byron Ellsworth Hamann) (Bogotá: MUSA, 2022). (Read the .)
(co-editor, with Fotini Kondyli) Birmingham Byzantine and Ottoman Studies 31 (Abingdon: Routledge, 2022). (Read the .)
Robert Wood, (London: Bloomsbury, 2021). (Read the .)
(co-editor, with Felipe Rojas) Joukowsky Institute Publication 8 (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2017). (Read the .)
Selected essays:
On Byzantine art:
"," in Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Asian History (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2016 - ). Article published November 20, 2024.
"," in Jeffrey F. Hamburger, David J. Roxburgh, and Linda Safran, eds., The Diagram as Paradigm: Cross-Cultural Approaches (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection, 2022), 93-112.
"," in Helen C. Evans, ed., Art and Religion in Medieval Armenia (New York: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2022), 16-26.
"," in Ellen C. Schwartz, ed., The Oxford Handbook of Byzantine Art and Architecture (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2021), 133-146.
"," in Mike Humphreys, ed., A Companion to Byzantine Iconoclasm (Leiden: Brill, 2021), 144-187.
"," in Michael Grünbart, ed., Unterstützung bei herrscherlichem Entscheiden: Experten und ihr Wissen in transkultureller und komparativer Perspektive (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2021), 22-39.
“,” in Sabine Feist, ed., Transforming Sacred Spaces: New Approaches to Byzantine Ecclesiastical Architecture from the Transitional Period (Wiesbaden: Reichert, 2020), 161-87.
“,” in Niccolò Zorzi, Albrecht Berger, and Lorenzo Lazzarini, eds., I tondi di Venezia e Dumbarton Oaks: Arte e ideologia imperiale tra Bisanzio e Venezia (Rome: Viella, 2019), 35-49.
"," in Troels Myrup Kristensen and Lea Stirling, eds., The Afterlife of Greek and Roman Sculpture: Late Antique Responses and Practices (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2016), 290-309.
On the history of Constantinople:
"," Medieval Encounters 31 (2025), 405-438.
"," in Emily Neumeier and Benjamin Anderson, eds, Hagia Sophia in the Long Nineteenth Century (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2024), 125-147.
"," in Elizabeth Key Fowden, Suna Çağaptay, Edward Zychowicz-Coghill and Louise Blanke, eds., Cities as Palimpsests? Reponses to Antiquity in Eastern Mediterranean Urbanism (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2022), 125-140.
"," in Fotini Kondyli and Benjamin Anderson, eds., The Byzantine Neighbourhood: Urban Space and Political Action (Abindgon: Routledge, 2022), 155-173.
"," in Peter D. De Staebler and Anne Hrychuk Kontokosta, eds., Roman Sculpture in Context (Boston: Archaeological Institute of America, 2021), 241-257.
“,” in Vasileios Marinis, Amy Papalexandrou, and Jordan Pickett, eds., Architecture and Visual Culture in the Late Antique and Medieval Mediterranean: Studies in Honor of Robert G. Ousterhout (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020), 3-17.
"," Journal of Roman Archaeology 29 (2016), 494-508.
"," Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik 64 (2014), 23-32.
"," Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies 35 (2011), 1-19.
"," Byzantinische Zeitschrift 104 (2011), 41-54.
On the history of scholarship:
"" (co-author, with Mirela Ivanova), The English Historical Review 139 (2024), 1230-49.
"," History Compass 22 (2023).
"," in Felipe Rojas, Byron Ellsworth Hamann, and Benjamin Anderson, eds., Otros pasados: ontologías alternativas y el estudio de lo que ha sido (Bogotá: MUSA, 2022), 283-306.
"," in Armin Bergmeier and Andrew Griebeler, eds., Time and Presence in Art: Moments of Encounter (200-1600 CE) (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2022), 159-174.
"," in Robert Wood, The Ruins of Palmyra and Baalbek (London: Bloomsbury, 2021), 1-22.
"," Greek, Roman, and Byzantine Studies 57 (2017), 248-260.
"," in Benjamin Anderson and Felipe Rojas, eds., Antiquarianisms: Contact, Conflict, Comparison (Oxford: Oxbow Books, 2017), 184-209.
"," Journal of Field Archaeology 40 (2015), 450-460.
In the news
- Twelve new Klarman Fellows to pursue innovative, timely research in A&S
- Wondering what to read in 2023? A&S faculty offer ideas
- Faculty research group addressing monuments, heritage
- New lecture series introduces research at ancient Sardis
- Professor wins art history book prize
- Faculty honored for teaching and advising
- Benjamin Anderson wins Charles Rufus Morey Book Award
- 2017 Merrill scholars honor their teachers and mentors
- Images of cosmos inform study of medieval cultures
