Carl Sheppard Memorial Lecture in Medieval Art History
Beyond Text: Objects and Manuscripts in Sacred Storerooms across Medieval Africa
Dr. Ariel Fein
1210 Heller Hall, 271 19th Ave S, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55455
Thursday 6 November 2025 | 7 - 8:30 PM
The Cairo Geniza has long been celebrated as an accidental archive of “sacred trash”—a repository where medieval Jews deposited worn texts bearing God’s name. But what if this narrative of passive preservation of manuscripts obscures a more dynamic reality? Alongside manuscripts, the Geniza also preserved Torah ark doors, dedicatory panels, and carved inscriptions that moved between the synagogue’s walls and the storage chamber across centuries. This material reality—long overlooked in favor of textual treasures—reveals a broader phenomenon across medieval Africa. From the Great Mosque of Kairouan, where precious Qur’ans shared space with chandeliers, woodcarvings, armor, and manuscript chests, to Ethiopian monasteries preserving textiles beneath parchment deposits, to Coptic churches assembling new sanctuary screens from centuries-old wooden fragments, religious communities across the Mediterranean world stored objects and texts together in sacred repositories. Drawing on new evidence from Jewish, Islamic, and Christian sites, this lecture reveals how the medieval Mediterranean and Africa were connected through unexpected practices of material preservation—and what these practices tell us about memory, devotion, and the very nature of the sacred in the medieval world.
Ariel Fein is an art historian specializing in the visual cultures of Byzantium and the Islamic world, with a particular focus on intercultural and interreligious relationships across the Mediterranean. Her forthcoming book, Refugee to Kingmaker: George of Antioch and the Shaping of Norman Sicilian Visual Culture, examines how a twelfth-century Arab-Christian refugee rose from displacement to become Norman Sicily’s most influential administrator and cultural innovator. Her current project, Medieval Wood Networks, investigates the circulation, consumption, and preservation of decorated wooden objects across the Mediterranean, including extensive research on the carved furnishings of Cairo’s Ben Ezra Synagogue. Her research has been supported by the Institute for Advanced Study, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Bard Graduate Center, the Medieval Academy of America, and the Mary Jaharis Center for Byzantine Art and Culture. Dr. Fein received her PhD from Yale University and holds degrees from the Courtauld Institute of Art and Barnard College.
The Carl Sheppard Lecture is an annual lecture in honor of the late Carl Sheppard, former University of Minnesota professor of medieval European art history. Begun in 2012 and held every fall, the Carl Sheppard Memorial Lecture in Medieval Art History celebrates the richness and diversity of global medieval art by inviting an internationally-renowned scholar to the University of Minnesota. The event is open to the University community and the general public.
If you would like to make a gift, you can contribute to the Carl Sheppard Memorial Fund through the University of Minnesota Foundation.
This event is cosponsored by the James Ford Bell Library and the Center for Jewish Studies.
For more information and to register, visit https://cla.umn.edu/premodern/news-events/events/beyond-text-objects-and-manuscripts-sacred-storerooms-across-medieval-africa