Barbara Crostini - Uppsala University
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Barbara Crostini
Uppsala University
Department of Linguistics and Philology
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I am Senior Lecturer in Church History, Art History, and Cultural Studies at the Newman Institute, Uppsala, and Adjunct Professor in Byzantine Greek, Department of Linguistics and Philology, Uppsala University, Sweden. I work on image and text in Greek manuscripts, Byzantine Iconoclasm, theories of visuality, East-West relations, as well as on biblical and patristic topics, with a special interest in the interdisciplinary study of Psalms.
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Videos by Barbara Crostini
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The Elijah Sequence at Dura Europos: Questions of Ordering and Exegesis
As part of a larger project on the Prophet Elijah, I have studied the Elijah scenes at Dura. I ar...
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As part of a larger project on the Prophet Elijah, I have studied the Elijah scenes at Dura. I argue that they are related to performance more directly than to written texts. The Elijah sequence can be understood as paradigmatic for the programme of paintings in the Dura synagogue (c. 240 CE)
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Papers by Barbara Crostini
“Performing the Bible at Dura: A Panel of Elijah and the Widow of Sarepta as tableau vivant.”
“Performance and Performativity in Late Antiquity and Byzantium,” ed. Niki Tsironi, special issue, Classics@ 24.
, 2025
An analysis of the panel of the resurrection of the son of the widow of Sarepta by the prophet El...
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An analysis of the panel of the resurrection of the son of the widow of Sarepta by the prophet Elijah on the West Wall of the synagogue at Dura Europos (c. 230 CE) shows that this scene is conceived as a tableau vivant, where the gestures and poses of the characters construct their message by pointing to implied spoken words. Their dialogue can be retrieved from 1 Kings 17, but later dialogic dramatizations extant in Syriac poetry demonstrate how audiences were familiar with the scene through its re-enactment in various versions. Moreover, the iconography suggests a parallel with Euripides’ play, Alcestis, underscoring the dramatization of its primary message: resurrection as the sign of true prophecy. The synagogue functioned as a public space for performance, and its paintings provide witness to this type of activity and were likely inspired by it.
Celebrating the Wonders of Elijah in the Painting Cycle at Dura Europos: A Test-Case for the Oral-Performativity of Images
From Prophet to Miracle-Working Saint: Dynamic Approaches to Elijah in Late Ancient and Medieval Cultures
, 2025
A performative interpretation of the cycle of paintings on the prophet Elijah in the Dura Europos...
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A performative interpretation of the cycle of paintings on the prophet Elijah in the Dura Europos Synagogue (3rd cent.)
Resolving Humbert’s Crux
Eleventh-Century Monasticism Between Politics and Spirituality
Les Dialogues Adversos Iudaeos: Permanences et mutations d’une tradition polémique, ed. by S. Morlet, O. Munnich and B. Pouderon (Paris: Institut d’Études Augustiniennes, 2013)
The Bryn Mawr Classical Review
, 2015
Les Dialogues Adversos Iudaeos: Permanences et mutations d’une tradition polemique, ed. by S. Mor...
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Les Dialogues Adversos Iudaeos: Permanences et mutations d’une tradition polemique, ed. by S. Morlet, O. Munnich and B. Pouderon (Paris: Institut d’Etudes Augustiniennes, 2013).
Kate Cooper, The Fall of the Roman Household (Cambridge, 2007)
The Heythrop Journal
, 2011
Henry Maguire, Nectar and Illusion: Nature in Byzantine Art and Literature (Oxford, 2012)
From Rome to Constantinople: Studies in Honour of Averil Cameron, H. Amirav and B. ter Haar Romney, eds (Leuven: Peeters, 2007)
The Heythrop Journal
, 2011
... From Rome to Constantinople: Studies in Honour of Averil Cameron. Edited by Hagit Amirav and ...
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... From Rome to Constantinople: Studies in Honour of Averil Cameron. Edited by Hagit Amirav and Bas ter Haar Romeny. Barbara Crostini. ... More content like this. Find more content: like this article. Find more content written by: Barbara Crostini. ...
Famous Forgiveness: The Reception of the Prayer of Manasseh in Byzantium (with a Transcription of Hesychios of Jerusalem’s Scholia from MS Oxford, Auct. D.4.1)
De Gruyter eBooks
, Oct 24, 2022
Christianity in the Greco‐Roman World: A Narrative Introduction. By Moyer V.Hubbard. Pp. xix, 320. Peabody, MA, Hendrickson Publishers, 2010, $15.12
The Heythrop Journal
, Mar 1, 2021
Another True Cross: Psellos, Heraklios, and the Cross of the Archangel Michael at Sykeon
Jahrbuch der Österreichischen Byzantinistik
, 2020
Why We Sing: Music, Word, and Liturgy in Early Christianity
Online Conference, Newman Institute, Uppsala
Digital Philology: : New Thoughts on Old Questions
Currently, no ‘canonical’ classical text with a multi-testimonial tradition has a digital scholar...
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Currently, no ‘canonical’ classical text with a multi-testimonial tradition has a digital scholarly edition based on a complete digital transcription of all primary sources, and on the automated collation of those transcriptions. Most classicists simply do not feel that they need such editions. I argue that this is ultimately due to the ‘canonization’ of the corpus of classical texts. Classicists are more focussed on the ‘Text’ than on the documents (manuscripts) and their texts: they tend not to consider the textual variance in the manuscripts as culturally meaningful in itself, but merely instrumental in view of the constitutio textus. I suspect that we will not have ‘comprehensively digital’ editions of ‘canonical’ classical texts with a multi-testimonial tradition until classical philology broadens its research agenda. 1. We have a problem There is a problem which seems to be mostly going unnoticed. There is no (not one) ‘comprehensively digital’ scholarly edition of a ‘classica...
Perils of Travel or Joys of Heaven? Reconsidering the Traveling Hypothesis for Bodleian Library, MS E. D. Clarke 15 and the Function of Diminutive Manuscripts
Manuscripta
, 2019
This paper examines the function and purpose of small format Byzantine Greek psalters. It address...
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This paper examines the function and purpose of small format Byzantine Greek psalters. It addresses specifically Marc Lauxtermann's proposal that, on the basis of its small size, Oxford, Bodleian Library, MS E. D. Clarke 15 was made for the purpose of travel. Contrary to Lauxtermann's literal reading of travel metaphors in the poems of the book's owner, Mark the Monk, I argue that size and portability are not reliable indicators of a travel function. Instead, by interpreting these travel metaphors as indicative of spiritual conversion and placing Clarke 15 within the context of Annemarie Weyl Carr's category of "diminutive manuscripts," I show that this manuscript and other such small psalters were produced as gifts to mark the entry into monastic life of the individual making profession.
Convivencia In Byzantium? Cultural Exchanges In A Multi-Ethnic And Multi-Lingual Society
“De monialibus in byzantino orbe”. Essays on Byzantine Women Monasticism
Athanasius’s Letter to Marcellinus as Psalter Preface
Studies in Byzantine History and Civilization
, 2019
Greek Manuscripts in Sweden: : a Digital Catalogue (www.manuscripta.se)
Greek manuscript cataloguing today and its future perspectives: a comprehensive overview. There i...
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Greek manuscript cataloguing today and its future perspectives: a comprehensive overview. There is currently a marked and steadily rising interest, in Greek manuscript studies and beyond, in the ma ...
The Arts of Editing Medieval Greek and Latin: a Casebook
With the triumph of the codex, medieval literature became more deeply hermeneutic in character. A...
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With the triumph of the codex, medieval literature became more deeply hermeneutic in character. A vast range of texts, in various languages and genres, were not only copied with the commentaries and glosses of ancient tradition, but also underwent continuous reworking and transformation. Indeed, the very act of transcribing texts into a manuscript was often an incentive to rewrite them. This practice resulted in a bewildering number of textual versions that lived alongside their originals, and sometimes displaced them, but were nevertheless fundamental to their transmission and interpretation, often resulting in complex textual layers.
Hesychios of Jerusalem’s Prologue to the Psalms Revisited in the Light of Vat. gr. 752 and its Illustrative Programme
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