Alumni Presentations: Johnston at the Renaissance Society

FSU Art History alumna Barbara Johnston (PhD 2007) presented a paper at the 2013 meeting of the Renaissance Society of America, held in San Diego in early April. Dr. Johnston is an Assistant Professor of Art History in the Department of Art at Columbus State University in Columbus, Georgia, where she specializes in Medieval, Renaissance, and Baroque art history

Johnston’s paper, “The Politics of Devotion: Political Iconography and Subtext in Louise of Savoy’s Vie de la Magdalene,” was presented in one of two sessions celebrating the publication of Mary Magdalene: Iconographic Studies from the Middle Ages to the Baroque, an anthology published by Brill Academic Publishers in November of 2012 as part of their Religion and the Arts series. Dr. Johnston contributed the chapter titled “The Magdalene and ‘Madame’: Piety, Politics, and Personal Agenda in Louise of Savoy’s Vie de la Magdalene,” which examines an illuminated manuscript on the life of Mary Magdalene that was created for Louise of Savoy, mother of French king Francis I. This publication is an outgrowth of her dissertation, “Sacred Kingship and Royal Patronage in the Vie de la Magdalene: Pilgrimage, Politics, Passion Plays, and the Life of Louise of Savoy.”

Dr. Johnston recently won the CSU College of the Arts Faculty Research and Scholarship award for her work on the Magdalene manuscript and is nominated for the CSU Scholastic Honors Award for Faculty Research and Scholarship, to be awarded later this month.