Professor Elena Ene Drăghici-Vasilescu, FRHistS

About

Professor Elena Ene Drăghici-Vasilescu is a lecturer in Byzantine and Medieval Studies in the Department of Continuing Education, a research fellow at the Oxford Centre for Medieval Research, and Examiner/Assessor for the Faculty of Theology. Professor Drăghici-Vasilescu also supervises doctoral students for the Faculty of History.

She teaches and researches in the fields of Byzantine philosophy and art, history of ideas, and Medieval Europe.

Professor Drăghici-Vasilescu recently published Amintiri de călătorie prin viaţă (prima parte) (Oxford, 2023), and is now working on its English translation, Memories of journeying through life (the first part).

Also among her latest books are: Michelangelo, the Byzantines, and Plato (Oxford, 2021); Glimpses into Byzantium. Its Philosophy and Arts (Oxford, 2021); Creation and Time. Byzantine and Modern (Oxford, 2021), and Heavenly Sustenance in Patristic Texts and Byzantine Iconography: Nourished by the Word (Palgrave, 2018), which was an Early Slavic Studies Association Book and Article Prize Winner 2019. 

Professor Drăghici-Vasilescu has also published in collective volumes and her articles feature in leading journals, for instance, The Journal of Theological Studies, Studia Patristica, Journal of Early Christian History, Byzantinoslavica, and Akropolis. They focus on patristics, Byzantine and post-Byzantine culture, hagiography, and ecclesiastical art.

Professor Drăghici-Vasilescu has been teaching for the Department of Continuing Education since 2011. She is also a frequent speaker at national and international conferences. Professor Drăghici-Vasilescu was a Visiting Professor in Byzantine culture at the Macquarie University in Sydney (2022-2023). 

In 2023 Professor Drăghici-Vasilescu organised an exhibition of icons entitled 'Byzantium then and now' at Wolfson College, Oxford University. In 2024, she is curating an Exhibition of Research photos and copies of Roman mosaics (Western and Eastern/Byzantine), titled 'The Romans and Us', also at Wolfson.

In 2023, Professor Drăghici-Vasilescu was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.

Professor Drăghici-Vasilescu holds a DPhil/PhD from the University of Oxford; a Dipl. Anthrop. from the University of Oxford; an MA from Ottawa, and a BA in Philosophy and History from the University of Bucharest.

Further viewing: Professor Elena Ene Draghici-Vasilescu, Workshop on Byzantine iconography, Oxford, 2021 (youtube.com)