Nicoletta Isar

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.

• Comparative studies in the history of mentalities and visuality: the sacred image of Byzantium versus the modern representation, both viewed as comparative terms and models of vision and representation.
• Byzantine culture and Christian anthropology; Byzantine liturgy and the theology of sacred image as performative space.
• Studies in Ritual Performance; Visual Anthropology - with a special interest in the recurrence of ritual in contemporary performances (Bill Viola as major interest).