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Home » News » Alumna Jennifer Feltman Selected for NEH and Kress Funded Seminars

Alumna Jennifer Feltman Selected for NEH and Kress Funded Seminars

Published September 21, 2014

2014 has been a busy year for FSU Art History alumna, Jennifer M. Feltman (Ph.D. 2011). In May, her article, “Charlemagne’s Sin, the Last Judgment, and the New Theology of Penance at Chartres,” was published in the Princeton Index of Christian Art’s Studies in Iconography. Over the summer, Dr. Feltman participated in two seminars, which were designed to enhance research and teaching of college faculty. She was one of 16 selected to participate in the NEH Summer Seminar, “Arts, Architecture, and Devotional Interaction in England, 1200-1600,” which was based at the University of York, June 8 – July 4, 2014 and co-directed by Dr. Sarah Blick and Dr. Laura Gelfand. The seminar investigated how objects, architecture and devotional practices intersected during the late Medieval and Renaissance periods and used as its primary source cathedrals, parish churches, tombs, chantry chapels and devotional jewelry. According to Dr. Feltman,

Jennifer Feltman standng by a statue

Jennifer Feltman

“This experience has enriched my understanding of the multisensory spaces in which devotional acts took place. It has also challenged my assumptions about the relationship between parish churches and cathedrals as well as the interactions of clergy and laity in these spaces. More significantly, as someone whose previous work has focused on the European continent, studying in England has opened up new ways for me to think about the internationalization of Gothic architecture and sculpture.”

NEH seminar participants were given special access to numerous objects and sites, including the workshops in which the great east window glass and masonry are being restored at York Minster. Two highlights for Dr. Feltman include viewing the east glass restoration with Dr. Sarah Brown and getting to climb the east end scaffolding to examine the stone restoration with the minster’s master mason, John David.

During the NEH seminar, Dr. Feltman pursued a new research project on the Judgment Porch sculptures at the Cathedral of Lincoln. This project has opened new avenues of research and will inform the discussion of Judgment portals outside of France in the last chapter of her current book project, “Moral Theology and the Cathedral: Portals of the Last Judgment in Thirteenth-Century France”.

Dr. Feltman was also one of a select group of faculty nationwide chosen by the Council of Independent Colleges to participate in a week-long seminar on Teaching Pre-Modern European Art in Context, funded by the Kress Foundation. The seminar was held at the University of Chicago, Smart Museum of Art, July 13-18, and led by Dr. Rebecca Zorach, Professor of Renaissance Art at the University of Chicago. The seminar discussions focused on the intersection of methodology and pedagogical practice in the teaching Renaissance Art and Architecture to undergraduate students.

Dr. Feltman is looking forward to bringing these first-hand experiences to the classroom in fall. She is also excited about the new research projects and collaborations that have been initiated through participation in the two seminars.

Images from the NEH Seminar can be found in Jennifer’s Flickr Album.

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