Sara Lipton



Associate Professor (Ph.D., Yale University, 1991)
E-Mail
sara.lipton@sunysb.edu
Office
SBS N-301
Phone
631-632-7501
Fax
631-632-7367
Research Interests
My work focuses on religious identity and experience, Jewish-Christian relations, and art and culture in the high Middle Ages (11th-14th centuries). I am currently working on two projects. The first, to be published by Metropolitan Books in 2009, examines how changing concepts of vision and witness in medieval Christian society intersected with the visual representation of the Jew. The second, entitled Art, Preaching, and Piety in the High Middle Ages (1150-1300) seeks to understand why and to what effect Christendom invested so much in worshiping the ineffable Word through the material thing.
Publications
“Images and their Uses,” in The Cambridge History of Christianity: Christianity in Western Europe c. 1000 - c.1500, ed. Miri Rubin and Walter Simons (Cambridge Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).

"The Jew's Face: Vision, Knowledge, and Identity in Medieval Jewish Caricature," in Late Medieval Jewish Identities, ed. Esperanza Alfonso and Carmen Caballero-Navas (Palgrave Macmillan, forthcoming).

"Where are the Gothic Jewish Women? On the Non-Iconography of the Jewess in the Cantigas de Santa Maria," Jewish History 22 (2008).

“The Sweet Lean of His Head: Writing about Looking at the Crucifix in the High Middle Ages,” Speculum 80:4 (2005), 1172-1208.

Images of Intolerance: The Representation of Jews and Judaism in the Bible Moralisee (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999). (Winner, John Nicholas Brown Prize for Best First Book; Finalist, Koret Jewish History Book Prize)
Blog by Sara Lipton

On the Margins of the City

Friday, January 11th, 2008

WOMEN, MINORITIES, and SUB-GROUPS IN PRE-MODERN AND MODERN URBAN COMMUNITIES

In the modern west, the nation state was long considered the paradigmatic political entity. But in the post-modern world, the importance of the nation state has declined, and we must get used to thinking about other forms of political and communal organization. This course focuses on the society and culture of one such non-state entity: the city. We shall explore a range of tools, concepts, and methodologies used by historians of cities from early medieval Islam through high medieval Marseilles, early modern Venice, modern Europe, and the contemporary U.S. and Latin America. Topics will include the spaces and roles occupied by women, the “theology” and “ideology” of neighborhood, the role of civic ritual, the politics of streets, collectivity versus individuality, the construction of ethnic and racial identity, the origins of the ghetto, and more. Requirements include one oral presentation, one 5-6 page review essay, and one 4-5 page response paper. For MA and PhD students only.

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