Dr. Rafca Nasr

Rafca Youssef Nasr is a Lecturer in Art History and Archaeology of the Byzantine World and the Christian East at the Lebanese University. She authored a doctoral thesis on Lebanon's ecclesial paintings as material components associated with specific spaces and performative actions, in particular liturgical practices and the ambitions of the objects' users. This thesis was presented at the Center for Higher Studies on Medieval Civilization at the University of Poitiers, where she remains an Affiliated Researcher. She also holds a diploma in the restoration of paintings, sculptures and ceramics from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. She carried out postdoctoral studies at the Institut National d'Histoire de l'Art – Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne and the University of Fribourg. She is a recipient of the Swiss Government Excellence Postdoctoral Fellowship. Her research focuses on the materiality and temporality of the sacred, and the relationship between images and church spaces, which are investigated in their historical, artistic, religious, and spatial/functional dimensions, in the context of artistic and cultural interactions in the Mediterranean basin.