Dr Eva Frojmovic

Profile

I am a medieval art historian with a strong interest in medieval manuscript illumination, cultural diversity, transcultural relationships, intersectionality. I have another strong interest in museology and heritage studies, especially in Jewish Museums.

I studied in Freiburg (1981–83), Jerusalem (1983/4) and Munich (MA 1988). After a term's internship at the National Gallery of Art in Washington (1988) I returned to do a Ph.D. in Munich, and spent 1990–02 researching in Rome (Bibliotheca Hertziana and Vatican Library). After gaining a Ph.D. in 1993 on the cultural and visual worlds of Francesco da Barberino, I became Frances Yates Postdoctoral Fellow at the Warburg Institute (1993–95). I have taught at the University of Leeds since 1995, helping to set up a Centre for Jewish Studies, and being part of the Institute for Medieval Studies, including serving on the International Medieval Congress' programming committee between 1997 and 2018.

My research circles around the intersection between Jewish studies, art history, medieval studies, museums and heritage, and postcolonial and gender theories. I teach about Medieval and Renaissance Art, especially its constructions of Otherness, and about Jewish Museums and the Jewish presence in Museums. I research medieval manuscript illumination, Jewish art, and cross-cultural encounters. I also have an interest in Jewish museums as touchstones of cultural diversity in museology. I continue my earlier interest in Italian art of the age of Giotto and Dante. I have been groping my way towards various non-iconographic approaches to the study of medieval art; at present, I am exploring the uses of postcolonial theories (supported by an AHRC research network grant, ‘Postcolonising the Medieval Image’, 2009–11). My teaching about medieval art is research led and informed by my interdisciplinary interests in postcolonial theory, patronage, questions of representation and ideology. I am especially interested in the formation of European subjectivities through exclusion and othering (of Jews, Muslims, Africans, but also on the basis of gender). I have taught Islamic art, especially with a view on the various meeting points between "East" and "West" (Levant, Sicily/Maghreb, Andalusia). I also teach on various aspects of the Renaissance especially in Venice, including the formation of ghettoes. I have been director of the BA History of Art (2010–2014). Since 2017, I have been Director of Postgraduate Research Studies. I am Director of the Centre for Jewish Studies.

PhDs completed (supervised/co-supervised):

• Peter Gross: Representations of Jews and Jewishness in English painting, 1887–1914. 2004 (with Griselda Pollock)
• Dominic Williams: Modernism, antisemitism and Jewish identity in the writing and publishing of John Rodker. 2004 (with Michael Winegrad)
• Annette Seidel-Arpaci: Memories and positionalities : Holocaust memory, migration and 'otherness' in renationalised Germany. 2005 (with Griselda Pollock).  
• Shir Kochavi: Salvage to restitution : 'heirless' Jewish cultural property in post-World War II. 2017 (with Mark Westgarth)
• Rachael Gillibrand: The materiality of physical impairment: Mobility and daily living aids c.1450–1550 (with Iona McCleery)
• Romina Westphal: Tapestry and gender: On the Neuf Preux and Neuf Preuses Motifs and the construction of Burgundian identity (with Rosalind Brown-Grant)

PhDs in progress (supervised/co-supervised):

• Heather Stoffregen: The private collection as agent over modern artist: Egon Schiele in post-war Vienna 1948/1968/2001 (with Mark Westgarth)
• Daniel Lyons: 12^th Century decoration of St Mary's church, Kempley, Gloucestershire (with Julia Barrow)
• Fiona Sit: Terracotta and Natural Philosophy in the 17^th century (with Richard Checketts)

Responsibilities

• Director, Centre for Jewish Studies

Research interests

Making and Unmaking Images: I am completing a book about Hebrew manuscript illumination in 1230s Ashkenaz.

The Archive after Cecil Roth: Jewish studies, cultural history and the Cecil Roth Collection.

Qualifications

• Ph.D. in history of art, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet
• MA in history of art, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitaet

Professional memberships

• BAJS
• EAJS

Student education

I teach about medieval art, Jewish art and Jewish museums.

Research groups and institutes

• Centre for Jewish Studies
• Centre for Cultural Analysis, Theory and History (CentreCATH)

Current postgraduate researchers

• Fiona Sit
• Quinty Uitman