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Neta Bodner, Lecturer

Neta Bodner
Contact Info

The Open University of Israel Department of Literature, Language and Arts 1 University Road P.O.B. 808 Ra’anana 43107, Israel
Office:972-9-7781991 Email:[email protected]

Areas of Interest
  • History of Art and Architecture
  • Visual culture, Medieval architecture
  • Liturgy and its setting
  • Jewish-Christian relations
  • Urbanism in medieval Europe
  • Religious ceremonies in the middle ages

Dr. Neta Bodner is an art historian whose research focuses on medieval art and (especially) architecture. Her work concentrates on Jewish and Christian religious buildings in the Romanesque and Gothic styles from Germany, Northern Italy and France. Her current project is a monograph on Jewish ritual baths (mikvaot) from Ashkenaz and their intersections with Christian Romanesque.
In 2018-2019 she was a Rothschild Yad-Hanadiv postdoctoral fellow at the University of Oxford, both as a visiting fellow at the Faculty of History and as a visiting scholar at the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies.
In 2016-2018 and again upon return from Oxford in 2019 she was a postdoctoral fellow in the ERC funded project “Beyond the Elite: Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Europe” headed by Prof. Elisheva Baumgarten at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Her project was a comparative analysis of Jewish ritual baths and bathing with Christian baptism and baptisteries in the High Middle Ages.
Bodner’s interest in baptisteries began during her Phd on religious architecture in Pisa. She studied the representation of Jerusalem’s sacred sites in Italian architecture as a doctoral fellow in the ERC funded project “SPECTRUm: Visual Translations of Jerusalem to Europe” headed by Prof. Bianca Kühnel. Her B.A. (magna cum laude), M.A. (summa cum laude) and PhD are from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

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2010 - 2016
Ph.D. in Art History, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, supervised by Prof. Bianca Kühnel, “Architectural Translations of Jerusalem’s Holy Sites to Pisa in the Middle Ages”
2006 - 2009
M.A. (summa cum laude) in European Studies, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, supervised by Prof. Bianca Kühnel and Dr. Lola Kantor Kazovsky, “The Baptistery of Pisa and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem: A Reconsideration of Era and Architecture”
2002 - 2006
B.A. (magna cum laude) in Art History and Comparative Literature, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem

2020  Lecturer, Department of Languages, Literature and the Arts, The Open University of Israel, Raanana

2019  Visiting Fellow: Faculty of History, University of Oxford; Visiting Scholar: Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies; Associate Member of the Senior Common Room, Lady Margaret Hall (LMH), University of Oxford

2019-2020 and 2016-2018  Postdoctoral Fellow, ERC project “Beyond the Elite: Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Europe”, The Hebrew University, PI: Elisheva Baumgarten

2015-2018  Research Consortium Member “Landscape, Heritage, and Identity of Europe, Cathedral Cities, Living Memories”, PI: Gerardo Boto Varella, Girona University

2010-2016  Doctoral Research Fellow, ERC project “Spectrum: Visual Translations of Jerusalem”, The Hebrew University, PI: Bianca Kühnel

2008-2009  Research Assistant, The European Forum at the Hebrew University

2007-2010  M.A Research Fellow, Fritz Thyssen Foundation project, “Sites of Memory and Memory of Sites”, PI: Bianca Kühnel

2022
Israeli Science Foundation (ISF) Research Grant, ‘Digging Deep:
Interdisciplinary Study of the Medieval Mikveh in Cologne’, international collaboration with Dr. Tanja Pothoff and Michael Wiehen, Köln, and Dr.
Tzafrir Barzilay, Bar Ilan.
2020
Massada Research Network ‘Body, Gender, Ritual, Purity’, collaboration with
Dr. Conrad Leyser, Dr. Laura Quick and Alice Raw, Worcester College,
University of Oxford
2020
Israel and Ione Massada Visiting Fellowship, Worcester College, University of Oxford
2020
The Open University of Israel Internal Research Grant
2018 - 2019
Rothschild Yad-Hanadiv Postdoctoral Scholarship
2018 - 2019
Postdoctoral Scholarship for Outstanding Female Scholars for research abroad, Victor Smorgen Fund and Hebrew University of Jerusalem
2017
Outstanding Lecturer List, Faculty of Humanities, The Hebrew University
2015
Outstanding Lecturer List, Avney Pinah Program, The Hebrew University
2013
Romolo-Deotto and Vigevani Foundation Prize for Field Research in Italy
2013
Faculty of Social Sciences Travel Grant for participation in the College Art Association Annual Conference, New York
2012
International Centre of Medieval Art (ICMA) Travel Grant to the International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo, University of West Michigan
2012
Israeli Association for Visual Culture in the Middle Ages (IMAGO) Travel Grant to the International Medieval Congress, Kalamazoo
2010
Municipality of Vienna Travel Grant for research in Austria
2010
Centre for Austrian Studies at the Hebrew University Travel Grant to Austria
2009 - 2010
European Forum Scholarship for participation in Student Consortium on Memory
2009
Fritz Thyssen Foundation and European Forum Travel Grant for research at the Max Planck Art History Institute, Florence
2008 - 2009
M.A. Excellence Scholarship, The European Forum at the Hebrew University
2008
Robert H. and Claris Smith Travel Grant for research in Pisa
2005
B.A. Scholarship for outstanding students of Art History, the Smith Foundation
2004
B.A. Dean’s list, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Faculty of Humanities 

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Pinkus, Assaf, Bodner, Neta and Segal, Einat. “A Holy Land within The Holy Land: Duc in Altum as a Case in Point”, Arts (accepted for publication with minor changes)

Bodner, Neta. “Medieval Concerns and Renaissance Architecture: The Relic of the Blood of Christ at Mantua and the Fifteenth-Century Rebuilding of Sant’Andrea” (undergoing revisions following review)

Bodner, Neta and Ariella Lehmann. “The Dedication Inscription of the Worms Mikveh, 1185/6”, Zion 88, 1 (2023), 7-40 [Hebrew]

Bodner, Neta. “Romanesque Beyond Christianity: Jewish Ritual Baths in Germany in the 12th and 13th Centuries." Jewish Studies Quarterly 28 (2021), 369-387

Bodner, Neta. “Architecture of Pisa," in ed. Kevin Murphy ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021)

Bodner, Neta. “The Camposanto, Pisan Medieval Architecture and Military Commemoration." in David Ganz, Michele Bacci and Rahel Meier eds., Journeys of the Soul: Multiple Topographies in the Camposanto of Pisa (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2020)

Neta Bodner and Ariella Lehmann, “‘So that a Person Sees Himself as if He was Created that Very Same Hour’ Ritual Immersion of Men, Utensils and the Public in Jewish Ritual Baths in Germany in the Middle Ages,” Hidushim: Studies in the History of German and Central European Jewry (2019), 47-83 (Hebrew)

“Earth from Jerusalem in the Pisan Camposanto,” in Renana Bartal and Hanah Vorholt eds., Between Jerusalem and Europe: Essays in Honour of Bianca Kühnel (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 74-93

“Why are there Two Medieval Copies of the Holy Sepulchre in Pisa? A Comparative Analysis of San Sepolcro and the Baptistery,” Viator: Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 48.3 (Spring 2018), 103-124

Renana Bartal, Neta Bodner and Bianca Kühnel eds. Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place 500-1500 (New York: Routledge, 2017)

“The Baptistery of Pisa and the Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – a Re-consideration,” in Bianca Kühnel, Galit Noga-Banai and Hanna Vorholt eds., Visual Constructs of Jerusalem (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 95-105

Bianca Kühnel, Neta Bodner and Renana Bartal eds. Projection of Jerusalem in Europe, Art & Religion, vol. 14 (Leuven: Peeters, in press) 

Bodner, Neta. “The Presence of Jerusalem in Mantua.” in Bianca Kühnel, Neta Bodner and Renana Bartal eds. Projection of Jerusalem in Europe (Leuven: Peeters, in press)

Bodner, Neta and Lehman, Ariella. “‘For a Stone Shall Cry Out from the Wall’ (Habakkuk 2:11) Medieval Synagogue Inscriptions from Worms and Mainz.” in Elisheva Baumgarten ed. Beyond the Elite: Jewish Daily Life in Medieval Europe 1100-1350 (forthcoming 2023)

Bodner, Neta. “The Camposanto, Pisan Medieval Architecture and Military Commemoration.” in David Ganz, Michele Bacci and Rahel Meier eds., Journeys of the Soul: Multiple Topographies in the Camposanto of Pisa (Pisa: Edizioni della Normale, 2020)

Bartal, Renana, Bodner, Neta and Kühnel, Bianca. “Natural Materials, Place and Representation.” In Bartal, Bodner and Kühnel eds., Natural Materials of the Holy Land and the Visual Translation of Place 500-1500, (New York: Routledge, 2017), xxiii-xxx

Bodner, Neta. “Earth from Jerusalem in the Pisan Camposanto.” in Renana Bartal and Hanna Vorholt eds., Between Jerusalem and Europe: Essays in Honour of Bianca Kühnel (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 74-93

Bodner, Neta. “The Baptistery of Pisa and the Rotunda of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem – a Reconsideration.” in Bianca Kühnel, Galit Noga-Banai and Hanna Vorholt eds., Visual Constructs of Jerusalem (Turnhout: Brepols, 2014), 95-105

Bodner, Neta. “The Kreuzweg of Vienna: Local History and Universal Salvation.” in Marija Wakounig and Karlo Ruzicic-Kessler eds., From the Industrial Revolution to World War II in East Central Europe, Europa Orientalis vol.12 (Vienna: Universität Wien, 2011), 225-239

Bodner, Neta. “Transcending Geography: the Architectural Transportation of Sanctity from the Holy Land to the Home Land.” in Benjamin Drechsel and Claus Leggewie eds., United in Visual Diversity.Images and Counter-Images of Europe (Innsbruk: Studien Verlag 2010), 238-249

Bodner, Neta. "Nazareth | Visual Arts,” in Constance M. Furey et alia eds., Encyclopedia of the Bible and Its Reception (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022)

Bodner, Neta. “Architecture of Pisa,” in ed. Kevin Murphy ed., Oxford Bibliographies in Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2021)