Princeton graduate student Emily Chesley (History) edited Visual Culture in Medieval Syriac Traditions, a volume published by De Gruyter in December 2025 as part of the “Sense, Matter, and Medium” series. The volume explores the visual and material culture of Syriac Christian communities and churches across the Middle East and Asia from the 5th to the 13th century.
The idea for the edited volume was first developed at a two-day conference, “Amassing Perspectives: Recent Trends in Syriac Iconography,” which was co-organized by Chesley and Alyssa Cady *22 (Religion). The event, held in September 2021, was hosted by the Department of Art & Archaeology, with support from the Committee for the Study of Late Antiquity and the Center for Collaborative History.
Chesley is a seventh-year graduate student in the Department of History. Her research and teaching focus on the social and religious history of the late antique Mediterranean, women and gender in the ancient world, and Syriac Christianity. Her dissertation, “Women on the Edge: A Social History of Women in the Late Antique East, 5th–8th c.,” is a social history of lay women living in the borderlands between the Roman and Sasanian empires and, later, the Islamic caliphates in Syro-Mesopotamia during late antiquity.
Read more about Visual Culture in Medieval Syriac Traditions on the De Gruyter website.
Read Emily Chesley’s full biography on the Department of History website.
