Cynthia Hahn will be coming to speak in the Seminar in Comparative Medieval Material Culture (China, Islam, Europe) Wednesday, January 27, 2010, on “Medieval Reliquaries: ‘Minor Arts’ of Major Importance.”


Dr. Hahn received her B.A from Pennsylvania State University, M.A. from the University of Chicago and Ph.D. from John Hopkins University. Currently, Dr. Hahn is Professor of Art History teaching early and late medieval art at Hunter College and The Graduate Center, CUNY. She was previously a professor at Florida State University, from 1982 to 2006, where she was named Gulnar K. Bosch Professor of Art History in 2001.

She has received numerous honors and fellowships from institutions such as the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton and has recently received a PsCuny grant to support the publication of her latest project, Sacred Treasure: Origins and Issues in the Making of Medieval Reliquaries, contract offered at University of Pennsylvania Press.

In 2001 Professor Hahn published Portrayed on the Heart: Narrative Effect in Pictorial Lives of the Saints from the Tenth through the Thirteenth Century (University of California Press, 2001) and in 1988 she authored the facsimile edition of the Passio Kyliani, Psuedo Theotimus, Passio Margaretae…Hannover Niedersächsische Landesbibliothek, Ms. I.189 (Graz Akademische Druck‑und Verlaganstalt, 1988). In addition to Scared Treasure Dr. Hahn is currently working on The Life of King Edmund in Pierpont Morgan Manuscript 736, for Brepols/Harvey Miller. She has recently been invited to participate in the planning of a major exhibition for 2010 “A Matter of Faith: Relics and Reliquaries in the Middle Ages”.

Please join us in the Lecture Hall at 38 West 86th Street, between Columbus Ave and Central Park West, at 5:45pm for a light reception before the talk.