Professor Elena Ene Draghici-Vasilescu
About
Professor Elena Ene Draghici-Vasilescu is a lecturer in Byzantine and Medieval Studies at the Department of Continuing Education; she also supervises doctoral students for the Faculty of History, is a Research Fellow at the Oxford Centre for Medieval Research, and is affiliated to Wolfson College, at the University of Oxford.
In 2023, Professor Draghici-Vasilescu was elected as a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society.
She teaches and researches in the fields of Byzantine culture, church history, the history of ideas, and Medieval Europe.
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 Draghici-Vasilescu has also published articles in collective volumes: The Last Wonderful thing: The icon of the Heavenly Ladder, in Wonderful Things: Byzantium Through its Art, Liz James and Antony Eastmond (eds.), Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, 176-184; Gregory of Nyssa entry in Ph. F. Esler (ed.), The Early Christian World, Routledge, 2017 (first edition 2000), chapter 55; pp. 1072-1087, etc.
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 Draghici-Vasilescu has been teaching for the Department of Continuing Education since 2011.
She is also a frequent speaker at national and international conferences.
Professor Draghici-Vasilescu will be a Visiting Professor in Byzantine culture at the Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia summer term 2023.
Next academic year she will teach another course about Byzantine and European medieval culture at Oxford University.
Expertise
- History in the Mediterranean area
- Byzantine history
- European history
- Early Medieval history
- Byzantine iconography
- Byzantine philosophy
- Byzantine religion
Selected publications
- “The Frescoes in Lysi, Cyprus and the Digital Modelling of Their Environment in the UK”, 3(1), 22-27 (Journal of Art and Design, 2023)
- “Paul Tillich on History”, in the European Journal of Theology and Philosophy, volume-3, Issue-2, pp. 1-8 (2023)
- “Byzantine objects in Medieval Rus’: a case study”, Romanoslavica, vol. 58, issue 1, pp. 62-96 (2022)
- “Byzantine icons wrought in metal”, International Journal of History and Cultural Studies, Volume 8, Issue-1, 2022, pp. 1-4
- "Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite and Byzantine Art", Journal of Early Christian History, pp. 1-26 (2021)
- Michelangelo, the Byzantines, and Plato (eBook, 2021)
- Creation and Time. Byzantine and Modern (eBook, 2021)
- Glimpses into Byzantium. Its Philosophy and Arts, 2021 (an anthology of peer-reviewed articles published by the author from 2019 to 2021)
- Heavenly Sustenance in Patristic Texts and Byzantine Iconography (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018)
Media experience
I have given various talks on the radio.
Listen to one of my talks in Oxford here.
A recording of the article “Common elements within the writings of Gregory of Nyssa and Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite” was posted on YouTube by the International Association of Patristic Studies/Association Internationale d’Études Patristiques (AIEP/IAPS) - watch online here. (Read the written version of the text here.)
Languages
English, Romanian, French, Italian