Draft:Sharon E. J. Gerstel

• Comment: I've reviewed the article. There are a few key issues that need sorting before this can be accepted:
  - List of publications needs trimming down considerably. Maybe to a few key ones that have received other coverage. Wikipedia convention is not to list every single publication in a biography. We also shouldn't be linking to Google Books/YouTube etc in the sections. I've removed the podcasts completely as these are just YouTube links.
  - I'm not sure the sourcing quite establishes notability. I'm disreguarding source 3 as that's an oral history project, not coverage. the coverage in regards to the sounds project is useful, and [1] may also assist. I think a few more sources would establish notability, but I'm struggling to find any more coverage (it may well be in Greek, given the topic of study, which would assist here still) Mdann52 (talk) 16:13, 23 May 2024 (UTC)

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Sharon E. J. Gerstel
Born	New York City, New York, U.S.
Alma mater	Bryn Mawr College

Sharon E. J. Gerstel (Greek: Σάρον Γκερστέλ) is an American historian and archaeologist. She is Professor of Byzantine Art & Archaeology, George P. Kolovos Family Centennial Term Chair in Hellenic Studies, and Director of the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation (SNF) Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture.

Life

Sharon E. J. Gerstel was born in New York City. She attended Bryn Mawr College and the Institute of Fine Arts at New York University where she studied Byzantine Art History and History.

After completing studies and fieldwork in Thessaloniki, she joined the faculty of the University of Maryland, where she taught Byzantine art history from 1994-2004 holding, at the same time, a position at Dumbarton Oaks.

In 2005, she joined the faculty of the UCLA where she was promoted to Full Professor in 2007. From 2016-2018, she served as Associate Director of the Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies at UCLA and was named inaugural director of the UCLA Stavros Niarchos Foundation Center for the Study of Hellenic Culture in 2019, a position she continues to hold.

In the 2010s, Gerstel and a team undertook research the acoustics of churches in the Byzantine era.

In 2020, Gerstel criticized plans to convert the Hagia Sophia to a mosque, calling it "anti-Orthodox" and "an attempt at cultural erasure".

Personal life

Gerstel moved to the West Coast in the 2000s. She has one child.

Awards and recognition

In recognition of her service to the Hellenic Republic, she was awarded honorary citizenship in 2021 and, in the same year, was named a Commander of the Order of the Phoenix, one of Greece’s highest honors. For her work as an art historian, she has been awarded the prestigious Runciman Prize, the inaugural book prize by the International Center for Medieval Art (ICMA), and the Maria Theocharis Prize by the Christian Archaeological Society in Greece.

She has been the recipient of numerous fellowships, including a J. Simon Guggenheim Fellowship. She was also awarded the Theodore Saloutos Award by the American Hellenic Council in 2019 and was honored, in the same year, by the Hellenic Society of Constantinople.

Notable Publications

Books and edited volumes

• Beholding the Sacred Mysteries: Programs of the Byzantine Sanctuary, CAA Monograph on the Fine Arts LVI (Seattle and London: University of Washington Press, 1999).
• Rural Lives and Landscapes in Late Byzantium: Art, Archaeology, and Ethnography.
• Gerstel, Sharon E. J.; Lauffenburger, J. (2001). A Lost Art Rediscovered: The Architectural Ceramics of Byzantium. University Park, PA: Penn State University Press.
• Thresholds of the Sacred: Architectural, Art Historical, Liturgical, and Theological Perspectives on Religious Screens, East and West. Dumbarton Oaks. 2006.
• Gerstel, Sharon E. J. (2013). Viewing the Morea: Land and People in the Late Medieval Peloponnese. Harvard University Press.

Articles and book chapters

• "St. Eudokia and the Imperial Household of Leo VI". The Art Bulletin. 79: 699–707. 1997. doi:10.1080/00043079.1997.10786807 (inactive 2024-05-24).{{cite journal}}: CS1 maint: DOI inactive as of May 2024 (link)
• “Recording Village History: The Church of Hagioi Theodoroi, Vamvaka,” Journal of Modern Greek Studies 38 (2020), 21-42.
• Gerstel, Sharon E. J. (2023). "Laskarina Bouboulina Imagined: Portraits of a Greek Heroine". In Kalogeropoulos, A. (ed.). Bouboulina and the Greek Revolution: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Heroine of 1821. Lanham, MD: Householder. pp. 149–79.

Interviews in popular journals and newspapers

• "Σάρον Γκέρστελ για τα αρχαία της Βενιζέλου: 'Η καρδιά μου ραγίζει για αυτό που θα συμβεί'". tvxs.gr (in Greek). April 30, 2021.
• "Hagia Sophia stripped of museum status, paving its return to a mosque". National Geographic. July 10, 2020.

Films

• “Inside the Atelier,” Creator. Documents a book project for children from Los Angeles’ first ‘parent trigger’ school.
• “Blessings and Vows,” Executive Producer, 2018. Public impact research in Vamvaka, Mani.