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Women Scholars of Orthodox Christianity

Divine Inspiration in Byzantium
A Conversation with Karin Krause

  • Karin Krause

    Associate Professor of Byzantine Art and Religious Culture, University of Chicago

  • Ashley Purpura

    Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Purdue University

Published on: December 21, 2022
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The Orthodox Christian Studies Center at Fordham University is delighted to present another episode of its webinar series highlighting the scholarly insights and academic careers of female scholars whose research and writing explore some facet of the history, thought, or culture of Orthodox Christianity.

Book Cover: Krause, Divine Inspiration in Byzantium

This episode features a conversation with Karin Krause on her recent book Divine Inspiration in Byzantium: Notions of Authenticity in Art and Theology (University of Chicago Press, 2022). In this volume, Karin Krause examines conceptions of divine inspiration and authenticity in the religious literature and visual arts of Byzantium. During antiquity and the medieval era, “inspiration” encompassed a range of ideas regarding the divine contribution to the creation of holy texts, icons, and other material objects by human beings. Krause traces the origins of the notion of divine inspiration in the Jewish and polytheistic cultures of the ancient Mediterranean and Near Eastern worlds and their reception in Byzantine religious culture. Exploring how conceptions of authenticity are employed in Eastern Orthodox Christianity to claim religious authority, she analyzes texts in a range of genres, as well as images in different media, including manuscript illumination, icons, and mosaics. Her interdisciplinary study demonstrates the pivotal role that claims to the divine inspiration of religious literature and art played in the construction of Byzantine cultural identity.

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Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in this essay are solely the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.

About authors

  • Karin Krause

    Karin Krause

    Associate Professor of Byzantine Art and Religious Culture, University of Chicago

    Karin Krause, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Munich, is an Associate Professor of Byzantine Art and Religious Culture in the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Before arriving in Chicago she taught at the Department of Art History of the University of Basel. She specializes in t...

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  • Ashley Purpura

    Associate Professor of Religious Studies, Purdue University

    Ashley Purpura is an Associate Professor of Religious Studies in the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, a Faculty fellow of the Cornerstone Integrated Liberal Arts Program, and the Director of the Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies Program at Purdue University. She received her Ph.D. at Ford...

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Disclaimer

Public Orthodoxy seeks to promote conversation by providing a forum for diverse perspectives on contemporary issues related to Orthodox Christianity. The positions expressed in the articles on this website are solely the author’s and do not necessarily represent the views of the editors or the Orthodox Christian Studies Center.

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Public Orthodoxy is a publication of the Orthodox Christian Studies Center of Fordham University