Menu Close

Diane Apostolos-Cappadona

Haub Director of Catholic Studies, Georgetown University

Diane Apostolos-Cappadona is Haub Director of the Catholic Studies Program, and Professor of Religious Art and Cultural History in the Catholic Studies and Women’s & Gender Studies Programs at Georgetown University. She received Georgetown University Alumni Association Faculty Award for 2008 as well as both the Annual Award for Excellence in the Arts from The Newington-Cropsey Foundation and the Excellence in Teaching Faculty Award from Georgetown University in 2000. During 1996-97, she was a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. Dr. Apostolos-Cappadona is the author of the Encyclopedia of Women in Religious Art(1996); Dictionary of Christian Art(1994); and The Spirit and the Vision: The Influence of Christian Romanticism on the Development of 19th-century American Art(1995); and of the new introduction for the reprint edition of Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Artby Gerardus van der Leeuw (2006).

She was the editor of Isamu Noguchi: Essays and Conversations(1994); Image and Spirit in Sacred & Secular Artby Jane Dillenberger (1990); Symbolism, the Sacred, & the Artsby Mircea Eliade (1985); Art, Creativity, and the Sacred(1995 [1984]); and The Sacred Play of Children(1983); Art Editor for World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, 25 volumes (1985-1994); and co-translator for A History of Religious Ideas, Volume IIIby Mircea Eliade (1985). A contributor to The Dictionary of Art(1996), American National Biography(1999), Encyclopedia of New England Culture(2005), Encyclopedia of American Studies(2001).Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography(1998), Encyclopedia of Sex and Gender(2007), Encyclopedia of Women and World Religions(1999), Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and the Arts (2015), Die Religion in Geschichte und Gegenwart(1998-2005), Christianity: A Complete Guide(2005), A Companion to the Study of Religion(2005), Religion Past and Present (2009-2013), New Westminister Dictionary of Church History(2008), Makers of Christian Theology in America(1997), The (Oxford) Dictionary of Islam(2001), and HarperCollins' Dictionary of Religion(1995).

Dr. Apostolos-Cappadona is the author of numerous articles for scholarly journals and collected volumes. She and Doug Adams co-edited Art as Religious Studies(1987) and Dance as Religious Studies(1990). With Lucinda Ebersole, she co-edited of Women, Creativity, and the Arts: Critical and Autobiographical Perspectives(1995). She was Consultant for Art and Religion for The Encyclopedia of Religion, 2ndedition(2005), Advisor for Art/World Iconography for the New Dictionary of the History of Ideas(2005), Area Editor for Cultural Reception of Art for theEncyclopedia of the Bible and its Reception(2006-present), and Consulting Editor for Art for the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Bible and Arts(2016). She serves currently on the editorial boards of Biblical Reception, Twentieth Century Religious Thought, and Visual Commentary on Scripture, and as a member of the scientific committees for the international conferences Florence and the Idea of the New Jerusalemand L’arte sacra e la mostre both based in Florence. She is Editor-in-Chief of the 8-volume series Sources and Documents in the History of Christian Art(2021), the 3-volume Oxford Encyclopedia of Religion and the Arts in the West (2023) and of the Brill Research Perspectives in Religion & the Arts (2017-2023). She is completing the two-volume Visualizing Biblical Women:Favored, Fallen or Otherwise(2022); Christian Art: A Companion Guide(2019);Christian Art: A Bibliographic Guide (2019); the translation of The Religions(2018); and Mary Magdalene: A Visual History (2020); and is Editor and Contributor to Variations on Christian Art(2021).

Dr. Apostolos-Cappadona was guest curator and author of the catalogue for In Search of Mary Magdalene: Images and Traditions(2002). She served as a Core Consultant to the PBS/BBC series, Dancing!(1993), and as co-curator for the celebratory exhibition Noguchi at the Dancefor the Dance Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (1994). She was a residential fellow at The Alden B. Dow Creativity Center (1982) and The Edward F. Albee Foundation (1983) in support of her study of the art and philosophy of Isamu Noguchi. Dr. Apostolos-Cappadona received fellowship support from the American Academy of Religion (1990), American Council of Learned Societies (1989), and NEH (1990).

Experience

  • –present
    Director of Catholic Studies, Georgetown University