Liz James

After a first degree at the University of Durham in Ancient History and Archaeology and then an MA in Byzantine Studies at the University of Birmingham, Liz James did a doctorate in light and colour to the Courtauld Institute in London. She then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the Barber Institute, University of Birmingham, and a British Academy Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship before starting at Sussex in 1993.

She is a Byzantinist interested in Byzantine things and what they tell us about Byzantium, across the whole range of the Byzantine Empire. She has worked on the perception of light and colour in Byzantine art; the role of women in Byzantium, and in questions around Byzantine gender; and the relationships between art and texts.

Most recently, she was engaged on a research project exploring Byzantine mosaics. With the help of colleagues, she constructed a database of medieval mosaics (available at http://www.sussex.ac.uk/arthistory/research/byzantinemosaics).

She also maintains a website https://medievalmosaics.com which aims to catalogue all surviving medieval mosaics.

Her mosaics work was supported by The Leverhulme Trust through a series of grants between 2003 and 2015.