Reed O’Mara

Mellon Foundation Fellow & PhD candidate

Department of Art History and Art

Where have you traveled this summer?

This summer has included a medley of personal vacations in Ireland, London and Lindisfarne, attending the Hebrew Paleography Codicology and Art History Workshop in Oxford and the International Medieval Congress (IMC) at the University of Leeds. This has been a really exciting summer of spending time with many different people and exploring wonderful works of art and architecture.

What were some highlights of the academic workshop in Oxford?

Being awarded a bursary from the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies enabled me to participate in their workshop at the Bodleian Library, which tied directly into my dissertation project. 

For two weeks, we studied works from the ninth through the eighteenth centuries to learn about the development of Hebrew scripts and book culture across time. 

I was overjoyed to engage with pieces near and dear to my research, including the massive two-volume Michael Mahzor(Digital Bodlein Michael 617 & 627) and the tiny Oppenheimer Siddur. I was also able to see Kennicott 1, a luxury bible produced in La Coruña in 1476, whose facsimile edition is currently at the Cleveland Museum of Art.

What did the IMC incorporate?

In Leeds, I attended the IMC in early July. The panel was sponsored by the International Center of Medieval Art’s (ICMA) Samuel H. Kress Foundation Travel Grant, which provided the funds necessary to send myself.

Together with my friend and collaborator Laura Feigen, I put together a session titled Afterlives and Legacies: Interventions in Medieval Hebrew Manuscripts, which was also sponsored by the ICMA. The session highlighted three scholars’ research on the long lives of Hebrew manuscripts, including those that had changed hands or been censored, amended, or rebound in some way.

How have your personal vacations referenced your academic interests?

In Ireland, I saw many early medieval works of art, reliquaries, manuscripts and several monastic sites. Many works -like the Bell of St. Patrick– were new to me, and I hope to be able to incorporate them into my future teaching. Here I gained a deeper understanding of early medieval Europe and am urged to ask new questions of my own materials.

In London, I was able to explore several medieval sites and collections. I also took a personal pilgrimage with a friend to Lindisfarne (also known as “Holy Island”), near Scotland, which is well known in medieval art history because it’s where St. Aidan and St. Cuthbert once served as bishops. We wandered the island and enjoyed seeing the old fortress, harbors, museum, and, perhaps especially, all the dogs!