USU Hosts Jaroslav Folda and the Harvey Stahl Memorial Lecture

Medieval art historian Jaroslav Folda is a guest at Utah State University and presents the 2012 International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA) Harvey Stahl Memorial Lecture Thursday, March 1. The lecture, open to everyone, is presented at USU’s Merrill-Cazier Library, Room 101 and begins at 5 p.m.

Folda, the N. Ferebee Taylor professor of the history of art at University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, will present “The Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Crusader Jerusalem and Christian Multiculturalism in the Levant.”

“We feel honored and gratified that USU was chosen to host the Harvey Stahl Memorial Lecture this year with Dr. Folda as the guest speaker,” said Alexa Sand, USU associate professor of art. “Not only is Dr. Folda recognized as the foremost expert on the visual culture of the crusading movement, but the lecture series itself is quickly attaining recognition as a prestigious event in the field of medieval art history.”

Folda is a widely respected scholar of medieval art who specializes in the cultural exchanges between Western and Eastern Europe and the Near East during the Middle Ages. Folda is a recipient of the Haskins Medal, which is awarded annually by the Medieval Academy of America for a distinguished book in the field of medieval studies.

The annual Harvey Stahl Memorial Lecture is sponsored by the IMCA, the global organization for medieval art history and archeology based in New York. Named in memory of Harvey Stahl, the fund supports lectures by distinguished scholars in any field of medieval art history at one or more institutions on an annual basis. Stahl was an eminent historian of medieval art who taught at the University of California, Berkeley. In recent years a number of institutions have hosted the series, including Tulane University, Emory University, the Denver Art Museum, Washington University and the University of Illinois-Chicago.

“I have a personal connection to the series since Harvey Stahl was my doctoral dissertation advisor,” said USU’s Sand. “He was a man of rare insight, courage and had a quiet but pointed sense of humor with an incredibly generous and humane character. His mentoring really drove me and a whole generation of Berkeley art historians to approach our craft with unsentimental rigor and an open-minded spirit of inquiry.”

The Harvey Stahl Memorial Lecture is also sponsored by the Caine College of the Arts, the USU Department of Art and Design and USU’s Religious Studies Program, in conjunction with the University of New Mexico.

While at USU, Folda will deliver a public lecture related to his research and also meet with students in art history and religious studies.

Related links:

USU Department of Art and Design

Caine College of the Arts

Writer: Rachelle Nielson, 435-797-9203, rachelle.nielson@usu.edu

Contact: Denise Albiston, 435-797-1500, denise.albiston@usu.edu