Women Scholars: Divine Inspiration in Byzantium: A Conversation with Karin Krause

The Orthodox Christian Studies Center is delighted to present the next episode of its webinar series highlighting the scholarly insights and academic careers of female scholars whose research and writing explore some facet of the history, thought, or culture of Orthodox Christianity. The broadcast will be livestreamed and open to all who have pre-registered. The event will include some time for live audience questions. For those who miss the live event, the center will archive each episode on its website and YouTube channel. This episode features a conversation with Karin Krause and Ashley Purpura.

About the Speakers
Karin Krause, who holds a Ph.D. from the University of Munich, is an associate professor of Byzantine art and religious culture at the Divinity School of the University of Chicago. Before arriving in Chicago, she taught in the Department of Art History at 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.

Ashley Purpura is an associate professor of religious studies at the School of Interdisciplinary Studies, a faculty fellow of the Cornerstone Integrated Liberal Arts Program, and the director of the Women’s, Gender, & Sexuality Studies program at Purdue University. She is the author of God, Hierarchy, and Power: Orthodox Theologies of Authority from Byzantium (Fordham University Press, 2018), and co-editor of Orthodox Tradition and Human Sexuality (Fordham University Press, 2022). Purpura’s current research projects focus on rethinking assumptions about women, gender, and otherness in light of Orthodox sources, traditions, and theology.