Summary:
Barbara Baert is Professor of Art History at KU Leuven, Belgium. She has written numerous interdisciplinary publications in the field of the humanities. Her scholarship involves sacred topography, visual anthropology, relics and devotion, and medieval gender, as well as art theory and Forschungsgeschichte, such as the work of Aby Warburg.
Besides being a prolific author, Baert has been the director of several international research programs, such as: “Mary Magdalene and the Touching of Jesus. An Intra- and Interdisciplinary Investigation of the Interpretation of John 20:17,” financed by FWO (2004-2008); “The Woman with the Haemorrhage (Matthew 9:20-22; Mark 5:24-34; Luke 8:42b-48). An Iconological Study of the Interpretation of the Haemorrhoissa in Medieval Art,” funded by KU Leuven (2008-2012); “Caput Iohannis in Disco. Object-Medium-function,” co-sponsored by FWO, KU Leuven and the University of Vienna (2012-2016). She is currently leading the following programs: “Ornamenta Sacra. Iconology of Liturgical Objects,” financed by Belspo-Brain-be: Belgian Research Action Through Interdisciplinary networks in collaboration with UC Louvain and KIK/IRPA Institute for Cultural heritage (2017-2021); and “Kairós, or the Right Moment. Nachleben and Iconology,” funded by KU Leuven (2018-2022).
Baert is the founder and editor-in-chief of three book series: Studies in Iconology (Peeters Publishers), Art&Religion (Peeters Publishers), and Iconologies (ASP Editions). Barbara Baert is part of the editorial board of Brepols - Series - IKON Studies and La rivista di engramma (open access).
Her recent books include: Pneuma and the Visual Medium in the Middle Ages and Early Modernity. Essays on Wind, Ruach, Incarnation, Odour, Stains, Movement, Kairos, Web and Silence (Peeters: 2016); Fragments (A celebratory glossary of her oeuvre) (Peeters: 2018); Interruptions & Transitions. Collected Essays on the Senses in Medieval and Early Modern Visual Culture (Brill: 2019), and About Sieves and Sieving. Motif, Symbol, Technique, Paradigm (De Gruyter: 2019), From Kairos to Occasio along Fortuna. Text / Image / Afterlife, (Brepols & Harvey Miller, 2021); The Gaze from Above. Reflections on Cosmic Eyes in Visual Culture, (Art & Religion, 11), Leuven-Walpole (Peeters Publishers), 2021; Looking Into the Rain. Magic-Moisture-Medium, (De Gruyter: 2022, 233 pp.). At press is Back to the Marshes. Meanderings on Myth, Metho, and Matter (De Gruyter), 2024.
