Milette Gaifman
Classics and History of Art
Director of Undergraduate Studies, History of Art; Assistant Professor
Her research focuses primarily on Greek religious art. She is interested in topics such as the divine image in Greek religion, the relationship between art and ritual, the variety of forms in Greek art — from the naturalistic to the non-figural — as well as the historiography of the scholarship of Greek art.
Professor Gaifman is currently preparing the publication of her study of Greek aniconism, which examines the cultic and visual significance ofnon-figural monuments that marked the presence of gods in Greek antiquity. In addition, she is collaborating with Maja Efsathiou of the 21st Ephorate of the Greek Archaeological Service in the publication of house altars from ancient Thera, a project which sheds new light on domestic religion in ancient Greece.
Selected Publications
- “Visualized Rituals and Dedicatory Inscriptions on Votive Offerings to the Nymphs,” Opuscula: Annual of the Swedish Institute at Athens and Rome. 1, 2008, 85-103.
- “The Aniconic Image of the Roman Near East,” in: The Variety of Local Religions of the Ancient Near East, Ted Kaizer ed., in the series Religions in the Greco-Roman World (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 37-72.“Statue, Cult and Reproduction,” Art History, (April 2006), 258-279.
- (Forthcoming) "The Libation of Oinomaos," in: Antike Mythen. Medien. Transformationen, Konstruktionen, Ueli Dill and Christine Walde eds., (Berlin, Walter de Gruyter)
- (Forthcoming) “Aniconism and the Idea of the Primitive in Greek Antiquity” in: Images of the Gods — Images for the Gods,ed. Mylonopoulos Joannis (Leiden: Brill).
- (Forthcoming) “The Absent Figure of the Present God: Aniconic Monuments on Greek Vases,” in: Theoi Epiphaneis Confronting the Divine in Greco-Roman Culture,Georgia Petridou and Verity Platt eds., (Leiden: Brill).
- (Forthcoming) “Framing Divine Bodies in Greek Art,” in: Framing the Visual in Greek and Roman Art, Michael Squire and Verity Platt eds., (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press).
