Karin Krause

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 the Christian visual cultures of Byzantium and the premodern Mediterranean region. Professor Krause’s research interests include visual hermeneutics, Byzantine manuscript culture, the interrelation of texts and images, the cult of relics, the theology of the icon, and phenomena of cultural exchange between Byzantium and the West. In her most recent book, Divine Inspiration in Byzantium: Notions of Authenticity in Art and Theology (Cambridge University Press, 2022), she examines the intersecting conceptions of divine inspiration and authenticity in the literature and visual arts of Byzantium. Krause traces how ancient ideas about the divine origin of texts and material artifacts were reinterpreted in Byzantine literature and art to promulgate claims to religious truth and authority.