Vladimir Ivanovici

Vladimir Ivanovici studied ancient history and archaeology at the University of Bucharest and the Freie Universität Berlin. He obtained a doctorate in ancient history from the University of Bucharest (2011) with a thesis on early Christian martyrs as living images of Christ. In 2014 he obtained a second doctoral degree, in art history, from the Accademia di architettura Mendrisio for a research on the theophanic dimension of Late Ancient Christian architecture in the upper-Adriatic area. His work explores the various manners in which the divine manifested in Late Antiquity, paying particular attention to the relevance of the living body as theophanic medium. Intersecting the study of cultic architecture and art with the anthropological views of various religions, his research seeks to identify the artifices through which the divine was materialised in the period.

Between 2015 and 2017, he developed a research project at the Bibliotheca Hertziana-Max Planck Institut fuer Kunstgeschichte Rom on self-display techniques used in late antique Rome. In 2019 he was Summer Fellow at the Dumbarton Oaks Library and Collection, Washington D.C., Harvard University. 

Since 2021, he is Marie Curie Fellow at the University of Vienna, with a project on the ritual use of emotions during annual martyr celebrations in the late antique period. 

‑ the perception of the body in the ancient and late ancient world
‑ the perception of religious artefacts
‑ the staging of transformative rituals
‑ decorative and constructive techniques used to manipulate perception