Education
Ph.D. History of Art, Yale University
M.A. Medieval Studies, Catholic University of America
B.A. Art (art history), Williams College
Biography
Alison Locke Perchuk is an art historian specializing in the study of the art and architecture of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean basin, with a particular emphasis on twelfth-century Rome and central Italy. Her recent book, The Medieval Monastery of Saint Elijah: A History in Paint and Stone (Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, no. 17, Turnhout: Brepols, 2021) examines the intersecting roles of the visual arts, architecture, ritual, and landscape in the creation of communal identity as well as the role of 19th-century perceptions of the Middle Ages in shaping our understanding of the era; an Italian translation is forthcoming. She publishes and speaks nationally and internationally (in both English and Italian) on medieval Italian landscape, architecture, and painting, and on medievalism, with a special emphasis on California, and her scholarship has been recognized with the 2018 Van Courtlandt Elliott Award of the Medieval Academy of America and with fellowships at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. Dr. Perchuk holds a BA in art history from Williams College, an MA in medieval studies from the Catholic University of America, and a PhD in the history of art from Yale University. Currently Associate Professor of Art History at California State University Channel Islands, she teaches courses on ancient, medieval, and Islamic art. She has served as programs committee member, webmaster, and treasurer of the Italian Art Society, councilor of the Medieval Association of the Pacific, and board member of the International Center on Medieval Art, and she is currently a member of ICMA’s Finance Committee. During the 2022–23 academic year, she is a National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow at the Huntington Library in Pasadena CA, working on her second book, Medieval California: Medieval Art, Neomedieval Architecture, and White Identity in the Golden State, 1850–1960.
Representative Courses Taught
- ART 110 Prehistoric Art to the Middle Ages
- ART 341 Goddesses and Heroes: Visual Canons of the Ancient World
- ART 343 Medieval Art: Diversity, Faith and Power
- ART 344 Global Arts of Islam
- ART 101 What Is Art?
- ART 300 Art History: Tools and Methods
- ART 300 Art History: Tools and Methods
- ART 330 Critical Thinking in a Visual World
Scholarship
Keywords
Medieval art and architecture, Christian monasticism, The city of Rome, Medieval Italy, Medievalism