Assistant Professor of Instruction, Global Medieval Art
Art History
Joseph Kopta, PhD
- Email: joseph.kopta@temple.edu
- Phone: 215 777 9177
- Office: Tyler 201J
- Website: http://temple.academia.edu/JosephKopta
Joseph R. Kopta is an art historian of the medieval world, with particular expertise in the visual and material culture of the Eastern Roman Empire. His intellectual interests are informed by issues of materiality, cross-cultural interaction, pre-modern gender, and networks between Byzantium, Africa, Venice, and caliphal courts. As a manuscript specialist, his research engages with the intersections of traditional art history and new technologies of scientific investigation and conservation that permit the identification of precise materials in works of art and processes of manufacture.
In his teaching, he regularly incorporates on-site learning opportunities at local collections, including the Philadelphia Museum of Art and the Penn Museum, centers digital humanities projects as part of student learning, and has brought students abroad to study art and architecture in Venice for a decade.
Kopta’s research has been supported by the Samuel H. Kress Foundation, the Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte in Munich, Germany, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, as well as Tyler School of Art and Architecture and Temple University grants and fellowships. He is currently working on a book monograph considering the materiality of the Byzantine codex.
Kopta regularly presents his work at conferences and symposia, including the Middle Atlantic Symposium on the History of Art at the National Gallery of Art; the International Byzantine Studies Congress; and the Byzantine Studies Congress of North America. In 2018 he co-organized, with Brad Hostetler, the Italian Art Society-sponsored double panel, "Venice, Materiality, and the Byzantine World" at the International Congress on Medieval Studies in Kalamazoo, MI. He also co-organized the Pratt in Venice 35th Anniversary Research Symposium with Diana Gisolfi in 2020. Prior to his academic career, he was a museum professional, notably at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum and the Museum of Biblical Art (MOBIA).
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PhD, Art History, Tyler School of Art & Architecture, Temple University, 2022
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Post-Baccalaureate Program, Classics, Columbia University, 2012
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MS, Theory, History, and Criticism of Art, Design, and Architecture, Pratt Institute, 2010
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BFA, Theory, History, and Criticism of Art, Design, and Architecture, Pratt Institute, 2008
Selected Awards:
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Dissertation Completion Grant, Temple University— 2022
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Center for the Humanities at Temple (CHAT) Advanced Graduate Research Fellowship, Temple University— 2021–2022
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2020-21 Art History Graduate Teaching Award, Tyler School of Art & Architecture, Temple University—2021
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Samuel H. Kress Institutional Fellowship, Zentralinstitut für Kunstgeschichte— 2019–2021
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Andrew W. Mellon Foundation Travel Grant for Part-time Faculty, Pratt Institute—2018–2019
Selected Work:
Kopta, J. R. The Materiality of the Byzantine Manuscript (in preparation)
Kopta, J. R. (forthcoming). “Hair, Touch, and the Ivory Comb of Leo VI as an Agent of Imperial Order.” (in peer review)
Kopta, J. R. (forthcoming). “Aesthetics of Purple in Middle Byzantine Manuscripts,” In Shades of Purple – Purple Ornament in Medieval Manuscripts, eds. Thomas Rainer and Charlotte Denoël. Berlin: De Gruyter for the University of Zurich [UZH], 2023.
Kopta, J. R. “Canosa di Puglia” and “K[enneth] J[ohn] Conant.” In The Grove Encyclopedia of Medieval Art and Architecture, ed. Colum P. Hourihane. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012, I:501-502; II:185-186.