Prof. Dr. Isabelle Dolezalek
Junior professor for the History of Art (Middle Ages)
Office hours: appointment via e-mail
Office E09
Phone: +49 (0)3834 420 3258
Mail: i.dolezalekuni-greifswaldde
Key areas of teaching and research
Transcultural art history, arts of the medieval Mediterranean, object biographies, looting and translocations of objects, history of museums and museum interpretation.
The junior professorship covers the arts of the Middle Ages and of the Early Modern period. Within this frame, the focus lies on transcultural and global issues, as well as on interdisciplinary research. Teaching activities aim to convey a contextual understanding of how art was produced and perceived at different stages of its reception until today. Students will gain an awareness of art historical methods. Project-based teaching offers insights into museum work and academic practice.
From 10/2019 | University of Greifswald, ajunior professor for the history of medieval art. |
Since 05/2019 | Elected member of the Junge Akademie at the Berlin-Brandenburgische Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina. |
Since 10.2018 | Technische Universität Berlin, fellow in the research-cluster Translocations. Historical Enquiries into the Displacement of Cultural Assets, directed by Prof. Bénédicte Savoy. |
| 2016-2019 | TU Berlin, assistant at the chair of modern art history (Prof. Bénédicte Savoy). |
| 2012-2018 | Museum project Objets in Transfer. Concepts for the museographical display of transcultural interchange, SFB-Episteme in Motion (Freie Universität Berlin) and Museum für Islamische Kunst (SMB). |
| 05.2013 | Completion of PhD (summa cum laude), FU Berlin. |
| 2008-2012 | FU Berlin, doctoral researcher in the DFG Emmy Noether-junior research group Kosmos-Ornatus. Ornamente in Persien und Frankreich im Vergleich, directed by Dr. Vera Beyer. |
| 2006-2007 | Université Lyon II. Master 2 Histoire comparée des societés médiévales chrétiennes et musulmanes. |
| 2004-2005 | Warburg Institute, University of London, MA Cultural and Intellectual History 1300 – 1650. |
| 2001-2004 | Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London, BA in the History of Art. |
A collection of written sources on the translocation of cultural assets from Antiquity until now. Blog (https://translanth.hypotheses.org/) and book project of the research cluster “Translocations. Historical Enquiries into the Displacement of Cultural Assets” (Technical University Berlin).
Book project on the first museum director Justus Brinckmann (1843-1915) and the collection of Islamic art in the Hamburg Museum für Kunst und Gewerbe. In cooperation with Tobias Mörike (director of the Islamic collection, MKG) and students of the seminar "Islamic Art in Hamburg" (winter semester 2018/19 and summer semester 2019, Technical University Berlin).
Heritage Revisited. Rediscovering Objects from Islamic Lands in Eighteenth-century Europe. Book project in peer-review for the series Studies in Art Historiography, Routledge. Eds Isabelle Dolezalek, Mattia Guidetti.
“Object Biographies - a New App for the Bode-Museum”. In cooperation with María López-Fanjul y Díez del Corral, Jennifer Moldenhauer (Bode-Museum) and project V of the cluster “museum4punkt0”. Contents for the app have been written by students of the CDFI, University of Greifswald.
Section “What Makes a Rightful Ruler?”, November 17th – 20th, 2019, Jerusalem. German-Israeli Frontiers of Humanities Symposium (GISFOH) of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities. Section organised with Tawfiq Da’adli, Hebrew University of Jerusalem.
Conference "Heritage Revisited. Rediscovering Objects from Islamic Lands in Enlightenment Europe", September 20th – 21st, 2018, University of Vienna. Organised with Mattia Guidetti, University of Vienna. Supported by the Fritz Thyssen Foundation.
Workshop "Transcultural Art Histories in the Museum", September 25th – 26th, 2015, Free University Berlin/Museum of Islamic Art Berlin. Organisation in cooperation with Vera Beyer.
Symposium for young scholars "Linking Islamic and Christian Art: Transfer and Comparison", June 24th – 26th, 2010, Free Universität Berlin. Organisation in cooperation with Vera Beyer and Simon Rettig.
| Rediscovering Objects from Islamic Lands in Enlightenment Europe, Hgg. Isabelle Dolezalek, Mattia Guidetti, New York 2022, www.routledge.com/Rediscovering-Objects-from-Islamic-Lands-in-Enlightenment-Europe/Dolezalek-Guidetti/p/book/9780367609474. |
| Beute - Eine Eine Anthologie zu Kunstraub und Kulturererbe, Hgg. Isabelle Dolezalek, Bénédicte Savoy, Robert Skwirblies, Matthes & Seitz, Berlin, 2021, www.matthes-seitz-berlin.de/buch/beute-12963.html. |
| Arabic Script on Christian Kings. Textile Inscriptions on Royal Garments from Norman Sicily, Das Mittelalter. Beihefte 5, eds Ingrid Baumgärtner, Stefan Conermann, Thomas Honegger, De Gruyter, Berlin, 2017, www.degruyter.com/view/product/477244. |
| Objects in Transfer. A Transcultural Exhibition Trail through the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin, eds Vera Beyer, Isabelle Dolezalek, Sophia Vassilopoulou, Januar 2017, www.objects-in-transfer.sfb-episteme.de. |
| „Contextualising Choices: Islamicate Elements in European Arts”, The Medieval History Journal, Themenheft, eds Vera Beyer, Isabelle Dolezalek, Monica Juneja, 15/2, 2012. |
| „The Font of the Interdict: Reconsidering the Function of Ornament on the Baptismal Font of San Giovanni in Pisa”, Gesta, 59/1, 2020, 73-90. |
| „Transkulturelle Objekte, ‚islamische Kunst‘ und die Identitätspotentiale von Museen“, in cooperation with Vera Beyer (forthcoming in the volume Doppelkongress Kunst, Geschichte, Unterricht). |
| „Introduction: Transcultural Relations, Global Biographies – Islamic Art?” (in cooperation with Vera Beyer und Sophia Vassilopoulou), in: Objects in Transfer. A Transcultural Exhibition Trail through the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin, eds Vera Beyer, Isabelle Dolezalek, Sophia Vassilopoulou, January 2017, pp. 7-10, www.objects-in-transfer.sfb-episteme.de. |
| „Alternative Narratives. Transcultural Interventions in the Permanent Display of the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin”, in: Objects in Transfer. A Transcultural Exhibition Trail through the Museum für Islamische Kunst in Berlin, eds Vera Beyer, Isabelle Dolezalek, Sophia Vassilopoulou, January 2017, pp. 23-34, www.objects-in-transfer.sfb-episteme.de. |
| „Comparing Forms, Contextualising Functions. Arabic Inscriptions on Textiles of the Norman King William II and Fatimid Ṭirāz”, in: Oriental Silks in Medieval Europe, Riggisberger Accounts 21, eds Juliane von Fircks, Regula Schorta, Riggisberg, 2016, pp. 80-91. |
| „Wissenswandel – Statuswandel: Objekte im safawidischen Stil zwischen Kunstmuseum, ethnologischer Sammlung und Depot”, in: Wissen in Bewegung.Institution – Iteration – Transfer, eds Eva Cancik-Kirschbaum, Anita Traninger, Wiesbaden, 2015, pp. 430-44, www.harrassowitz-verlag.de/dzo/artikel/201/001/1330_201.pdf |
| „Textile Connections? Two Ifrīqiyan Church Treasures in Norman Sicily and the Problem of Continuity across Political Change”, in: Al-Masaq, 2013/1, eds Alexander Metcalfe, Mariam Rosser-Owen, pp. 92-112. |
| „Fashionable Form and Tailor-Made Message. Transcultural Approaches to Arabic Script on the Norman Kings’ Mantle and Alb”, in: The Medieval History Journal, 15/2, 2012, eds Vera Beyer, Isabelle Dolezalek, Monica Juneja, pp. 243-68. |
| Review: Francesca Dell’Acqua; Anthony Cutler; Herbert L. Kessler et al. (eds), The Salerno Ivories. Objects, Histories, Contexts, Berlin 2016, in: sehepunkte 19 (2019), nr. 5, www.sehepunkte.de/2019/05/29034.html. |
| „Kirchenglocken in der Großen Moschee in Fès“, in: Translocations. Ikonographie, transliconog.hypotheses.org/kommentierte-bilder-2/1333-1337-kirchenglocken-in-der-grossen-moschee-von-fez, July 8th, 2019. |
| „Eine Ersatznische in Konya“, with Sophia Vassilopoulou, in: Translocations, Ikonographie. transliconog.hypotheses.org/kommentierte-bilder-2/2009-vor-eine-ersatznische-in-konya, July 8th, 2019. |
| „Die Plünderung Ktesiphons: Symbolische Beute vergangener Herrscher“, in: Translocations. Anthologie: Eine Sammlung kommentierter Quellentexte zu Kulturgutverlagerungen seit der Antike, translanth.hypotheses.org/ueber/ktesiphon, October 10th,2018. |
| „Beuteteilung in den Siete Partidas von Alfons X“, in collaboration with Gero Dolezalek, in: Translocations. Anthologie: Eine Sammlung kommentierter Quellentexte zu Kulturgutverlagerungen seit der Antike,https://translanth.hypotheses.org/ueber/siete-partidas, October 10th, 2018. |
| „Heiligenreliquien aus Byzanz - Gesta episcoporum Halberstadensium“, in: Translocations. Anthologie: Eine Sammlung kommentierter Quellentexte zu Kulturgutverlagerungen seit der Antike, translanth.hypotheses.org/ueber/halberstadt, July 12th, 2018. |
| „Medieval Ivories in the Bode-Museum (Staatliche Museen zu Berlin)“, in: Curator. The Museum Journal, a guide to the museum’s ivory artifacts, eds Cheryl Braunstein, Scott Miller, Marjorie Trusted, 61/1, 2018, onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cura.12233. |
| „Trendy Trade with Blue-and-White Dishes. Early Networks of Ceramic Exchange between East and West”, in: Early Capitals of Islamic Culture: The Artistic Legacy of Umayyad Damascus and Abbasid Baghdad (650-950), exhibition catalog (Sharjah, Museum for Islamic Art, Oktober 2014), eds Stefan Weber, Ulrike Al-Khamis, Susan Kamel, Berlin, 2014. |
| „Enluminure” in: Dictionnaire européen des ordres militaires au Moyen-Age, eds. Nicole Bériou, Philippe Josserand, Paris, 2009. |
| „Mécénat”, in: Dictionnaire européen des ordres militaires au Moyen-Age, eds. Nicole Bériou, Philippe Josserand, Paris, 2009. |
"Museen als Weltbildermaschinen" at the Salon Sophie Charlotte of the Berlin Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, January 18th, 2020.
What if the coronation mantle of the Holy Roman Empire were displayed differently? "Weltbilder" (World Views) by the Young Academy in the Sophie Charlotte Salon of the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences, Humanities and Social Sciences, Deutschlandfunk (January 23rd,2020).
A feature by Andreas Beckmann:
https://ondemand-mp3.dradio.de/file/dradio/2020/01/23/weltbilder_dlf_20200123_2012_091cd077.mp3