Cutler Elected Fellow of Medieval Academy of America
March 11, 2005
Anthony Cutler, Evan Pugh Professor of Art History, has been elected a fellow of the Medieval Academy of America. The Medieval Academy of America was founded in 1925, and is the largest organization in the world devoted to medieval studies. Its goal is the support of research, publication, and teaching in medieval art, archaeology, history, law, literature, music, philosophy, religion, science, social and economic institutions, and all other aspects of the middle ages. Among the 111 Fellows of the Medieval Academy, comprised of historians of art, literature and music, philosophers and theologians, there are only four Byzantinists.
Cutler, recognized as a world authority in Byzantine studies, has taught at Penn State since 1967. After receiving his B.A. and M.A. in history (Trinity College, Cambridge University, England), he pursued his Ph.D. in art history at Emory University. Cutler teaches courses in late antique, early Christian and Byzantine art. He also teaches graduate courses on theory, iconology and methods of research. His current research examines the gift exchange between Byzantium and Islam. He is unraveling the complex cultural exchanges of precious gifts and embassies between these two societies by using an interdisciplinary approach including art history and anthropology to decipher the cultural history.
Cutler has received numerous awards, grants, fellowships and prizes. The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation awarded Cutler a fellowship for 2002-03 and he is a lifetime fellow of the Society of Antiquaries. He has received grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities and other foundations. He has been awarded the Humboldt Research Prize, the Francois Ier Medal from the College de France and Penn State’s Faculty Scholar Medal for Outstanding Achievement.
In 2004, Cutler was a J. Clawson Mills Scholarship Fellow at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, where he conducted research on his study, “Import or Domestic? Byzantine and Byzantinizing Ivories in Ottonian Germany.”
He is the author of 12 books, numerous book chapters and hundreds of papers and reviews, among them The Hand of the Master: Craftsmanship, Ivory, and Society in Byzantium and Byzantium, Italy and the North: Papers on Cultural Relations. His current book The Empire of Things: Gifts and Gift Exchange Between Byzantium, Islamic World and Beyond is forthcoming.
Contact: Kate Hoffman, kah39@psu.edu or 814.863.2104