Research output per year
Research output per year
Docteur ès lettres
Karen Blixens Vej 1
2300 København S
Denmark
Research activity per year
She is the author of Chorography (2011), a breakthrough in Byzantine studies, and she has extensively published a broad spectrum of articles ranging from Mediterranean culture to contemporary ritual performances, from para-theatre to video art (especially on video artist Bill Viola), as well as on subjects from other disciplines, such as psychology, music, and the anthropology of image.
She has long been involved with the theory of image as a scholar equipped in Classical studies, which enabled her in seizing the paradigm shifts of image throughout time, and in conducting comparative discussions around new phenomena in contemporary visual culture.
Her research reflects her academic formation, as well as her intellectual horizon of all-embracing propensity for eclecticism within the comparative cultural studies, focusing continuously and consistently on themes reflecting the patterns of imagination and their poetics.
Her main research project is “Chorography (Chôra, Chóros): A performative paradigm of creation and imagination,” a comparative and interdisciplinary project. Chorography takes as a point of departure Plato’s chôra from Timaeus, and expands the field of analysis of sacred space from antiquity and Byzantium to contemporary performances. The method of research combines different skills of comparative studies in the European history of mentalities, visuality and musicology, with philosophical, philological, and theological approaches. The project is part of the international project “Hierotopy: Studies in the Making of Sacred Space,” initiated in 2002 with Dr. A. Lidov. Hierotopy elaborates the main principles and boundaries of a new field, explores the theory of sacred image and the model of Metaphysics of Presence, in which international well-known scholars from different disciplines participate in a cross-interdisciplinary research. Her latest project, Anthropologies of Play, explores chaos and chance and the possibility of play in the abyssal structure of chôra, with focus on frenzy choreographies (the corybantic, the leap in frolic, un coup de dès, the Virtual, plasma, concatenations in hypermedia) as manifestations of the imaginary chôra space of creativity.
She is a co-editor of various international journals and is involved in a series of Danish and International networks, as well as a co-active collaborator in various laboratories of research on visual anthropology and the study of image in Europe. She has participated in numerous international and interdisciplinary conferences, and seminars, congresses, on Byzantine studies, visual anthropology, studies on image and music, as well as performative studies in theatre.
Spoken: French, English, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Danish.
Read: Old Slavonic, Latin, Old Greek.The Anthropology of Posthumanism: Visions from the near future: transgenic, eugenics, cloning Graduate course, Spring 2012, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies.
Thaumaturgus opticus: Masters of Deception, Seductive Visions in Visual Culture Graduate course, Spring 2012, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. The Ister – Foundational River. European Anthropology and History in The MakingEUROPE Graduate course, Fall 2011, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Hysterical Histories of Art: The Arts of Fear and Disappearance Graduate course, Fall 2011, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Senmiddelalder, Renæssance Undergraduate course, Fall 2011, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Technology and Revelation in Bill Viola’s Video Installations. Media, Metaphor and the Unknown Graduate course, Spring2011, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Bild-Anthropologie (V): The Anthropology of Image: Towards a Cultural History of ImagesGraduate course, Spring 2011, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Senmiddelalder, Renæssance Undergraduate course, Fall 2010, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. The Time of the Image: Art History as the Anachronism of Images Graduate course, Spring 2010, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. The Rise and the Fall of the gods – The Dawn and the Twilight of their Dance Graduate course, Spring 2010, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Bild-Anthropologie (IV): Sublime Simulacra – the Pygmalion EffectGraduate course, Fall 2009, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Violence and Mimetic Desire in Contemporary Imaginary Things Hidden from the Foundation of the World according to Girard Graduate course, Fall 2009, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. The Power of Images. The Syndrome of Idolatry and Iconoclasm Undergraduate course Sidefag, Fall 2009 Immanence and Transcendence in Byzantine Image. Towards a Model of Metaphysics of PresenceGraduate course, Spring 2009, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Modernitet & samtidskunst Undergraduate course, Spring 2009, ÅU Æstetik og Kunstteori IIUndergraduate course, Fall 2008, ÅU Bild-Anthropologie (III): Iconic Turn: The New Image of the WorldGraduate course, Fall 2008, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Image and Space (Billed- og Rumanalyse): Undergraduate course, Fall 2007+ Spring 2008, Institute of Art History (Tilvalg & Open University), Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Paratextures: On Signs and ScreensGraduate joint course with Charles Lock, Fall 2007, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Comparative Literature, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. The Spatialization of Sound From World Picture to Sound WorldParticipation into the graduate courseAuditiv kultur, Fall 2007, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Ad-Marginem: Towards a theory of metapictorialitySidefag undergraduate course Fall 2007,Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Eros and Pathos: Images of Bliss, Immortal Bodies. A Hierotopic Approach to Contemporary PerformanceSidefag undergraduate course Spring 2007,Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Image and Space (Billed- og Rumanalyse) Undergraduate course, Fall 2006 – Spring 2007, Institute of Art History (and Open University), Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Bild-Anthropologie (II): Visual Arts and Anthropologies: History of Art as a Cultural History of ImagesGraduate course, Spring 2006, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. The Earthly and Heavenly Jerusalem Undergraduate course, Spring 2006, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Bild-Anthropologie (I): Visual Anthropology: Image, Body, MediumGraduate course, Fall 2005, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Performing the Sacred in ByzantiumUndergraduate course, Fall 2005, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Chorography (II): The Hospitality of the Chôra and the Ethics of the GiftGraduate course, Spring 2005, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Viola’s Ontology of the ImageGraduate course, Spring 2005, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Chorography: Around a performative paradigm of imagination and creationGraduate course, Fall 2004, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Technology and Revelation: Viola’s Ontology of the ImageGraduate course, Fall 2004, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies,Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Hagia Sophia and Its Ontological Proportions: Cosmology and Man’s Creation in Byzantine Culture: Graduate course, Spring 2004, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. Studies in Ritual Performance. Patterns in Comparative Culture: From Holy Sites to Viola’s Bodies of Light: Graduate course, Spring 2004, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research, Visual Studies, Department of Arts and Cultural Studies. The Sacred Image of Byzantium (II): The Model of Vision and its BeholderUndergraduate course, Spring 2003, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research. The Sacred Image of Byzantium: The “I” of the ImageUndergraduate course, Fall 2001, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research. The Playing Subject: The Postmodernism Thirst for PerformanceGraduate course, Fall 2001, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research- The Trial of the Subject (II): Clothing the SubjectGraduate course, Spring 2001, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research. Carnival: Mundus Perversus and its Reverse ImageUndergraduate course, Spring 2001, Institute of Art History, Dance, and Theatre Research. The Trial of the Subject (I): The Body in perspective. The Torment of the ImageGraduate course, Fall 2000, Institute of Art History, Dance and Theatre Research. Baroque IV: A Totalizing Vision and its Discourse. A Short (Hi)story of the Museum and of its Beginnings: Undergraduate course, Fall 2000, Institute of Art History, Dance and Theatre Research. Venetian Visual Culture of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth: Byzantine and Western Traditions Undergraduate course, Spring 2000, joint course with Marina Vidas, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. Velázquez’ Las Meninas: The Theology of Painting or the Limits of Classical RepresentationUndergraduate course,Spring 2000, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. The Time of the Image: the Era of Art and Before ItGraduate course, Spring 2000, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. Baroque III: Of Light, Shadow, and NarrativeUndergraduate course, Fall 1999, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. The Completion of the Tableau. The Signature and the Death of the AuthorUndergraduate course, Fall 1999, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. Baroque II: Blindness and Seeing: The Story and the Theory of Sight in Rembrandt’s PaintingUndergraduate course, Spring 1999, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. Toward an Archaeology of Face and Power: The Eclipse of Vision in the Classical Age: Paradigms and Alterations: Undergraduate course, Spring 1999, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. Siena: Civic and Ritual in Dugento and Trecennto Visual CultureSpring 1999, joint course with Marina Vidas, undergraduate course, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research The Empty Mask. The Stuffed Body. The Space of Laughter in ModernityUndergraduate course, Spring 1998, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research; Modern Culture Studies, Institute of Comparative Literature. Goya: The Disaster of AnthropomorphismUndergraduate course, Spring 1998, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. Studies in Baroque I: The Baroque Model of Vision - The Invention of the Tableau Undergraduate course, Fall 1998, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research.. The Insufficient Body: Watteau’s Melancholy:Undergraduate course, Fall 1998, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. Deconstructing Text and Image in Modern Art:Graduate course, Spring 1997, Modern Culture Studies, Institute of Comparative Literature. Commodity and Representation: European Still Life of the 17th centuryUndergraduate course, Fall 1997, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. Figure and Space; Colour into Light in the Venetian LandscapeUndergraduate course, Fall 1997, Institute of Art History and Theatre Research. Melancholy and the Modern BodyUndergraduate course, Fall 1997, Modern Culture Studies, Institute of Comparative Literature. The Making of English Landscape PaintingUndergraduate course, 1996, fall + spring 1997. Institute of Art History, Dance and Theatre Research.Lectures and Papers:
2018
Dancing/Dwelling into the Sacred Space Χώρα. Byzantine Chorographies
Über Tanz sprechen. Semantiken und Funktionen von Tanz im Mittelalter und in der Frühen Neuzeit 26.‒27. Januar 2018 - Göttingen Universität
THE SOUNDING WATERS PERFORMING WORLD HARMONY AT AQUASGRANI
Workshop „Tanz imMittelalter“ (Themenheft „Das Mittelalter“) Berlin, 22/23.März 2018
2017
DAZZLING Χορός: Being Moved by Light. Tropes of Sensoriality in Byzantium
Séminaire du LABEX RESMED Religions et sensorialité organisé par Béatrice Caseau et Elisabetta Neri University Paris Sorbonne bibliothèque Boutruche Sorbonne escalier F, 2e étage 11 My 16h-18h 15h-17h
Chôra, Theurgy, and the Deification of Man. Hierotopy and hier-Anthropos (theios Anthropos)
EASR European Association for the Study of Religions Special Conference of the International Association for the History of Religion 18-21 Sept 2017 Leuven Belgium
The Sense of the Elementals (Lightning, Thunder) in the Transfiguration of Christ on the High Mountain – a Hierotopy of Theomorphism
The Holy Mountains in Hierotopy and Iconography of the Christian World, MoscowRussian Academy of Arts on September 13-15, 2017
2016
HIEROGRAPHY/CHOROGRAPHY:
Patterns of Imagination and Visual Inscription of the Sacred in Byzantium
Congress of Byzantine Studies Belgrade August 2016
2015
Revealing/Concealing: Dazzling Adumbration in the Byzantine Chôra
NCCR eikones annual conference “Revealing/Concealing: (in)visibility in pre-modern societies” Basel 18-20 Nov. 2015
The Dance of Adam: The Gesture ἐπὶκαρπῷχεῖρας in Reconstructing the Byzantine χορὸς
International Symposion: Gestures and performances, Helsinki 30 Oct 2015
Images Borne on Air – A Wonder to Behold
Symposium “Life and Death: The Animation of Image” Copenhagen 27 May 2015
2014
Borne on dew lightning. Byzantine Parthenogenesis as Hierotopic Brilliance
International Symposium The Life-Giving Source. Water in the Hierotopy and Iconography of the Christian World The Institute for World Culture at Moscow State University, the Department of Medieval Studies of the Research University’ High School of Economics, the Russian Academy of Arts, and the Research Centre for Eastern Christian Culture Moscow on 24-26 June 2014
The Playing Image – Staging Bildakt
WHAT IMAGES DO, SYMPOSIUM, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts, Copenhagen, March 19-21, 2014
2012
ΧΟΡÓΣ Χορός: A Paradigm of Creation and Imagination. From Greek archaic poetry to sacred liturgical drama of the mystery in the Christian church
DANCING IMAGES AND TALES Iconography of dance from Classical to Middle Age
Aula Magna, Campus Catalunya Universitat Rovira i Virigili, Tarragna Spain December 3rd, 2012
Shining Time: Material Radiance The Anachronism of Image
SRLC-conference 2012: “Cultures of Transition: Presence, Absence, Memory” University of Copenhagen, 19-21 Oct 2012 Section: Transcendence and Memory
2011 BEDAZZLED. BEING MOVED BY CHORÓS Byzantine Aesthetics in the Mediterranean: Poikilia, Marmarygma kai Empsychosis – Round Table at the International Byzantine Studies Congress, Sofia, Bulgaria August 22-27, 2011 Organizer: Bissera V. Pentcheva Dancing Light into the Byzantine Sacred Space. The Athonite Chorography of Fire International Conference ‘Light and Fire in the Sacred Space’ The Institute for World Culture, Moscow State University, The State Library of Foreign Literature, The Research Centre for Eastern Christian Culture, Moscow September 27-29, 2011 2010 Sonic Strokes: Boltanski’s Heartbeats and his “Archives du Coeur” (“Heart Archives”)Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
Research output: Book/Report › Anthology › Research › peer-review
Research output: Book/Report › Book › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Literature review › Research › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Book chapter › Research › peer-review
Isar, N. (Other)
Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution
Isar, N. (Other)
Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution
Isar, N. (Participant)
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Organisation of and participation in conference
Isar, N. (Other)
Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution
Isar, N. (Member)
Activity: Membership types › Membership in research network
Isar, N. (Visiting lecturer)
Activity: Visiting an external institution types › Visiting an external academic institution
Isar, N. (Other)
Activity: Talk or presentation types › Lecture and oral contribution
Isar, N. (Participant)
Activity: Participating in or organising an event types › Participation in workshop, seminar, course