Jelena Bogdanović is an Assistant Professor of Architectural History at the School of Art and Design.  She also participates in ECU’s programs in Russian and Medieval and Renaissance Studies.  Trained both as an architect and an historian of art and architecture, she did architectural, archaeological, visual, and textual studies in Brazil, Bulgaria, Germany, Great Britain, Greece, Russia, Serbia, Turkey, and the U.S.  

Jelena specializes in the architectural history of Byzantine, Slavic, Western European, and Islamic medieval cultures, with an emphasis on cross-cultural and religious themes of architecture and artistic hybridity in the Mediterranean basin.  Academic interests include concepts of sacred space, relationships between the human body and material objects that reflect divine presence, cultural and religious appropriations, copies and emulations, destruction and revisionism, anachronisms, preservation of architectural heritage, and themes on architectural profession.  Jelena has contributed articles in Hilandarski Zbornik, Serbian Studies, Athanor and entries for the Encyclopedia of the Hellenic World, The Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages, and The Middle East in Focus: Egypt (ed. M. Russel).  Currently, she is developing a project on Serbian women architects who have marked the profession (with Č. Marinković and D. Ćorović) and preparing a manuscript on canopies and the framing of sacred space in the Byzantine ecclesiastical tradition.  

EDUCATION
Ph.D. Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
M.A. Art and Archaeology, Princeton University
M.A. Art History, Vanderbilt University
B.Sc. Architecture, Faculty of Architecture, University of Belgrade, Serbia

COURSES TAUGHT
ART 1906: Art History Survey I: Prehistoric to Medieval
ART 2920: Art of the Middle Ages (WI)
ART 3951: Introduction into Architectural History
ART 6910: Art of the Middle Ages
ART 6951: History of Architecture

PUBLICATIONS
•    The Art of Egypt, chapter in ABC-Clio Middle East in Focus: Egypt (formerly Egypt: A Global Studies Handbook), ed. M. Russel [forthcoming]

•    Entries for the Oxford Dictionary of the Middle Ages (Art and Architecture: Russian; Art and Architecture: Serbian; Arch; Ark of the Covenant; Aureole; Corbel; Diaconicon; Exonarthex; Fleuron; Locus Sanctus; Mandylion; Minaret; Mihrab; Minbar; Opus Francigenum; Opus Mixtum; Opus Reticulatum; Opus Sectile; Pilaster; Pilaster Strip; Rose Window; Sacristy; Spandrel; Stringcourse; Tetraconch; Trefoil; Voussoir; Wheel Window) [forthcoming]

•    “The Original Tomb of St. Simeon and Its Significance for the Architectural History of Hilandar Monastery,” Hilandarski Zbornik 12 (2008): 35-54.

•    Entries for the «ENCYCLOPEDIA OF THE HELLENIC WORLD» www.ehw.gr [Haghia Eirene (Αγία Ειρήνη); Late Byzantine religious architecture in Constantinople (Υστεροβυζαντινή ναοδομία στην Κωνσταντινούπολη); Sculpture in Constantinople (Γλυπτική στην Κωνσταντινούπολη); Water Supply in Constantinople (Σύστημα ύδρευσης στην Κωνσταντινούπολη); Cisterns (Κιστέρνες); Basilica Cistern / Yerebatan Saray (Βασιλική Κιστέρνα / Γιερεμπαντάν Σαράι); Tetrapylon (Τετράπυλο); Chalke Gate / Entrance of Great Palace (Χαλκή Πύλη / Είσοδος του Μεγάλου Παλατιού)]

•     “Jelisaveta Načić: The First Serbian Female Architect,” Serbian Studies 18/2 (2004): 403-410.

•    “The Church of the Assumption of the Virgin at Matejić. Regional Re-interpretation of Middle Byzantine Constantinopolitan Architecture in the Palaeologan Era?”  Abstracts of Papers. Twenty-Ninth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference, October 16-19, 2003, (Olin Arts Center & Pettengill Hall, Bates College, Lewiston, ME, 2003): 18-19. Also, on-line:  http://www.bsana.net/conference/archives/2003/abstracts_2003.html

•    “Architect Nikola Dobrović – A Member of the Heroic Generation,” Serbian Studies 17/1 (2003): 87-100.

•    “The Proclamation of the New Covenant: The Pre-Iconoclastic Altar Ciboria in Rome and Constantinople,” Athanor 18 (2002): 7-19.

•    “Apofatični videz mavzolejev kraljevske dinastije Nemanjićev,” Apokalipsa 55/56 (2002): 95-105.
“The Apophatic Appearance of Royal Mausolea of the Nemanjić Dynasty,” Annales d'Esthétique 41A (2001/2): 127-139.
The same article has been published twice, in Slovenian and English by invitation.

•    “Political Ideology and Architecture” (with N. Stanković), Compendium of the works done in the Belgrade Open School (Belgrade, 1999).
Published as the best-written paper in the humanities done in the Belgrade Open School for the 1993-98 period.

PRESENTATIONS
•    2010 Chicago, IL, 98th College Art Association Annual Conference
Panel: The Political Landscapes of Capitals [co-chair with J. Christie]
Paper: “The Relational Geopolitical Landscape of Constantinople, the Capital of Byzantine Empire”

•    2009 Boston, MA, 41st NCEEER (National Council for Eurasian and East European Research, former American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies – AAASS) National Convention
Panel: Forgotten Serbian Thinkers: Borisavljević, Vasić, Krakov and Milanković – Current Relevance [chair]

•    2009 Florida State University’s Ringling Museum, Sarasota, FL, 35th Annual BSANA Conference (Byzantine Studies Association of North America, former Byzantine Studies Conference – BSC)
Paper: “The Rhetoric of Architecture and Memory of the Holy Sepulchre in Byzantium”

•    2009 Moscow, Russia [Russian Academy of Arts and Research Centre for Eastern Christian Culture] Symposium – Spatial Icons. Textuality and Performativity
Paper: “The Performativity of Shrines in a Byzantine Church: The Shrines of St. Demetrios”

•    2009 Downtown Dialogues at Starlight Café, Greenville, NC [The Humanities Advisory Council at ECU] Panel – The Humanities in the Modern United States: Building Bridges from Research to Real Life
Paper: “Beyond ‘Robin Hood: Men in Tights’ in a Crisis of Wealth”

•    2008 Philadelphia, PA, 40th AAASS National Convention
Paper: “Two-Dimensional Canopies and their Origin in the Opus Sectile Floors of Serbian Medieval Churches”

•    2006 Washington, D.C., 38th AAASS National Convention
Paper: “Contemplating the Epitaphios of King Milutin (r. 1282-1321) as a Fourteenth-Century Replica of Christ’s Burial Shroud”

•    2006 Hellenic Studies Workshop, Princeton University
Paper: “ “…and you shall make holy garment for Aaron…:” Un-Veiling Liturgical Mysteries in the Byzantine Church”

•    2006 Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, SECAC (Southeastern College Art Conference)
Paper: “The Architectural Structure above the Bodily Remains of Hosios Loukas in His Monastery in Boeotia, Greece”

•    2006 Museum of Biblical Art, New York, New York Medieval Liturgy Group
Paper: “The Moving Ciborium. The Fifteenth-Century Major Sakkos of Metropolitan Photios in Use”

•    2004 Boston, MA, 36th AAASS National Convention
Paper: “On the Architecture of the Konaks in Serbia after 1804”

•    2003 Bates College, Lewiston, ME, 29th Annual Byzantine Studies Conference
Paper: “The Church of the Assumption of the Virgin at Matejič. Regional Re-interpretation of Middle Byzantine Constantinopolitan Architecture in the Palaeologan Era?”

•    2003 Oxford University, Oxford, UK, Round Table on Palaeologan Culture
Paper: “The Role of Mid-fourteenth Century Skopje in the Development of Byzantine Church Architecture”

•    2002 Pittsburgh, PA, 34th AAASS National Convention
Paper: “Jelisaveta Načić – The First Serbian Woman Architect”

•    2001 Crystal City (Arlington), VA, 33rd AAASS National Convention
Paper: “Architect Nikola Dobrović – A Member of the Heroic Generation”

•    2001 Tallahassee, FL, Florida State University Graduate Symposium
Paper: “The Proclamation of the New Covenant: The Pre-Iconoclastic Altar Ciboria in Rome and Constantinople”

•    2000 Athens, Greece, The First Mediterranean Congress of Aesthetics: Aesthetics on the Threshold of the Third Millennium
Paper: “The Apophatic Appearance of Royal Mausolea of the Nemanjić Dynasty”

EDITORSHIP OF PROFESSIONAL BOOKS
•    M. R. Perović, Modern Architecture – Anthology of Texts, vols. 2/A and 2/B (Belgrade: School of Architecture, 1999 and 2000)

PROFESSIONAL AFFILIATIONS
•    College Art Association, USA
•    Society of Architectural Historians, USA
•    Byzantine Studies Association of North America [former Byzantine Studies Conference], USA
•    Southeastern College Art Association, USA
•    American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies, USA
•    North American Association for Serbian Studies, USA
•    Delaware Valley Medieval Association, USA
•    Medieval Academy of America, USA
•    Society for Studies of Medieval Architecture in the Balkans and Its Preservation (AIMOS), Greece

•    Serbian (native)
•    Modern Greek, Russian, German, and French (reading knowledge)
•    Latin and Classical Greek (basic)