Professor and Chair, Art and Art History
Kriszta Kotsis is an art historian who teaches ancient and medieval art, including specialized courses on Greek, Roman, Byzantine, Western Medieval, and Islamic art, and art historical methodology. Her research focuses on representations of women in the Late Antique and Byzantine periods, with emphasis on images of empresses. She published articles about images of Byzantine empresses titled “Defining Female Authority in Eight-Century Byzantium: The Numismatic Images of Empress Irene,” in Journal of Late Antiquity (2012), and “Mothers of the Empire: Empresses Zoe and Theodora on a Byzantine Medallion Cycle,” in Medieval Feminist Forum (2012). Her article in Medieval Culture: A Handbook, Fundamental Aspects and Conditions of the European Middle Ages (2015), examines the history of the Greek Orthodox Church. Her study on Empress Theodora of the ninth century appeared in an edited volume titled Virtuous or Villainess? The Image of the Royal Mother from the Medieval to the Early Modern Era (2016).