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- Kris Racaniello holds an MPhil (2021) in Romanesque and Gothic Art and Architecture, with a minor in Islamic Architec... moreKris Racaniello holds an MPhil (2021) in Romanesque and Gothic Art and Architecture, with a minor in Islamic Architecture from the Graduate Center, CUNY. In 2017 Racaniello was granted an MA in Medieval Art History and a Certificate in Curatorial Studies from Hunter College, CUNY, NY. They are a PhD candidate in Medieval art history at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City, with a certificate in medieval studies. Their Dissertation in-progress is entitled “The Power of Materialized Narratives: shrines in Santiago de Compostela, Oviedo, Conques,” and approaches shrines as consciously constructed sites that reframed and retold local histories– in effect "marketing" the shrine sites as (re)newed cult centers– through the efforts of a group of special, competing shrine concepteurs.
Currently, Racaniello is Kress Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History (2023-25) and was recently a Research Fellow at the DFK Paris (Deutsches Forum für Kunstgeschichte, Spring 2023).
They focus on bodily performance in spaces of ritual and in public interactions with objects of devotion, monumental sculpture, and the built environment. Materiality, process and issues surrounding gender and production in the Middle Ages inform and shape Racaniello's research interests. Racaniello is involved in the ongoing European Union project “Conques in the Global World” as the head of the project’s auralization branch, producing acoustic data collection and processing the soundscape of the Abbey Church in Conques, France.
Previously, Racaniello taught art history courses at Hunter College and Queens College, has taught practical lost wax Bronze casting classes and stone sculpture, and pursued an apprenticeship in Florence for fresco restoration. Kris worked at Les Enluminures (2016-2022), a gallery specializing in rare manuscripts, small scale sculpture and miniatures from the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and has served as Co-Director of Field Projects Gallery since 2016. Additionally, they were a Writing Fellow for WAC/WID (Writing Across the Curriculum) from 2021-2023, at Laguardia Community College and John Jay, respectively.
Kris Racaniello's Master’s thesis was entitled "The Shrine System: Votive Culture and Cult Sculpture, Enshrining Space in 11th to 13th Century France." Racaniello has also written review articles for various contemporary art magazines, including Art Papers, the Brooklyn Rail, and Field Magazine.edit - Dr. Cynthia Hahnedit
Enchanted Pedagogies, edited by Kari Adelaide Razdow, collects essays by artists and writers who reflect on archetypes and tropes of enchantment, intertwining elements such as transformation, imagination, creativity, and empathy as they... more
Enchanted Pedagogies, edited by Kari Adelaide Razdow, collects essays by artists and writers who reflect on archetypes and tropes of enchantment, intertwining elements such as transformation, imagination, creativity, and empathy as they consider pedagogies and magic. This chapter contributes a reflection on the archetype of the Sibyl from these figure's historically embedded realities, to their appearance in popular media as neoclassical fantoms, to the author's own intimate relationship with the archetype, ultimately arguing that the Sibyl/Sybil affirms the potency of knowledge production beyond dominant power structures and constraints. Sibyl offers a model validating the differently abled and possessed's innovative modes of knowledge transmission that avoid dominant cultural interpretations.
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Research Interests:
Reapproaching Conques from new contexts is the basis of the present volume, a product of the international project “Conques in the Global World. Transferring Knowledge: from Material to Immaterial Heritage” (Marie Skłodowska-Curie... more
Reapproaching Conques from new contexts is the basis of the present volume, a product of the international project “Conques in the Global World. Transferring Knowledge: from Material to Immaterial Heritage” (Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange H2020). Although it is an important location of cultural heritage and has been consequential historiographically and in the formation of art history, there has never been a comprehensive, interdisciplinary approach to this momentous site. Thus, this volume publishes the first results of the interdisciplinary and international project, which were initially presented at a conference and enriched by workshops held in New York City in the summer of 2022. The collected essays open with reflective and historiographic work on Conques in the nineteenth century. These segue into essays reconsidering specific integral elements of extant medieval materials at the site. Finally, the volume concludes with a series of essays devoted to placing Conques in a broader context. The entire volume aims to open to as yet unaddressed questions in scholarship on Conques, with the hope that this work will provide a foundation for future studies.
Research Interests: Art History, Digital Humanities, Heritage Studies, Interdisciplinarity, Medieval Studies, and 12 moreMedievalism, Historicism, History of Art, Historiography (in Art History), Romanesque Art, Religious congregations and monastic orders, Medieval Art, Early and Medieval Islamic Art and Architecture, Medieval Art History, Romanesque architecture, Middle Ages, and Medieval Reliquaries
Full transcript of Racaniello's Master's Thesis, detailing the "shrine complex" and votive culture. Possible relationships between northern and southern French shrines are examined in this paper through case studies of the shrines at... more
Full transcript of Racaniello's Master's Thesis, detailing the "shrine complex" and votive culture. Possible relationships between northern and southern French shrines are examined in this paper through case studies of the shrines at Chartres and Conques. The materiality of cult statues and votive objects, the body as performative tool, and institutional motivations are considered for their bearing on the shrine as a system.
Recommended Citation:
Racaniello, Kristen N., "The Shrine System: Votive Culture and Cult Sculpture, Enshrining Space in 11th to 13th Century France" (2017). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/148
Recommended Citation:
Racaniello, Kristen N., "The Shrine System: Votive Culture and Cult Sculpture, Enshrining Space in 11th to 13th Century France" (2017). CUNY Academic Works.
https://academicworks.cuny.edu/hc_sas_etds/148
Research Interests:
Queering medieval history is a complicated and expansive task. Conflicting identities and ideas around sexuality frequently played out in the forum of the public bathhouse, yet these physical monuments are often destroyed beyond repair... more
Queering medieval history is a complicated and expansive task. Conflicting identities and ideas around sexuality frequently played out in the forum of the public bathhouse, yet these physical monuments are often destroyed beyond repair and socially deactivated. Traces of multifaceted and complex dynamics of desire can be found in the pages of a late medieval copy of De Balneis Puteolanis at the Pierpont Morgan library (MS G. 74), providing valuable insight into the existence of a queer medieval gaze. Painted in this manuscript is a conflict between two patrons-one who expressed desire for ambiguously sexed bodies and homoerotic iconography, and one who sought to erase those traces of exuberant lust. Through examining the pages of the Glazier manuscript, an image of a complex encounter between homosocial and homosexual desire emerges as a core element of the public bathhouse experience.
Research Interests: Queer Studies, Art History, Medieval History, Medieval Studies, Queer Theory, and 14 moreSexuality, Gender and Sexuality, Manuscript Studies, Haptics, Medieval Italy, Medieval Art, Codicology of medieval manuscripts, Italy, Touch, Baths and bathing culture, Public Baths, Bathing, Revision, and Feminist & Queer Archives
Iron was a crucial presence in shrines that claimed to liberate the imprisoned and oppressed. In the Abbey Church of Sainte Foy at Conques, iron entered the shrine complex in the form of votive objects like shackles and chains, given by... more
Iron was a crucial presence in shrines that claimed to liberate the imprisoned and oppressed. In the Abbey Church of Sainte Foy at Conques, iron entered the shrine complex in the form of votive objects like shackles and chains, given by emancipated devotees. This material professed the saint's power through its transformation into support structures (like grills and iron-clad doors). Moving from textual narratives, to preserved materials, and finally to "vanished" objects, this paper seeks to trace the flickering penumbra of an integral but archivally elusive element that activated shrine space. I address the interrelationship of iron with oppression and Muslim captors, prisoners, and warriors, as well as iron's complex role in narratives of conversion. The "Iron Man" in the Liber miraculorum shows the power of Sainte Foy to break iron, free the unconverted, and draw Muslims into the Christian fold. Through its powerful connection to the miracle stories, iconography, epigraphy, and materials present at Conques, I articulate vanished iron's once central role in the construction and staging of Sainte Foy's shrine complex.
*This paper was published as an open access article with Convivium Supplementum by Brepols.
*This paper was published as an open access article with Convivium Supplementum by Brepols.
Research Interests:
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Art History, Medieval History, and 15 moreMedieval Studies, Anthropology of Pilgrimage, Pilgrimage, Culture, Pilgrimage Routes, Carolingian Studies, Romanesque Art, Medieval Art, Visual Arts, Carolingian Art, Romanesque architecture, Pilgrimage and Tourism, Romanesque Sculpture, Romanesque Wall Painting, and Archaeology of pilgrimage
More on the Conques International Project at conques.eu
Research Interests:
Research Interests: History, Cultural Studies, Art History, Architecture, Medieval History, and 15 moreCultural Heritage, Medieval Studies, Pilgrimage, Identity (Culture), Culture, Pilgrimage Routes, Carolingian Studies, Romanesque Art, Medieval Art, Pilgrimage and Art, Carolingian Art, Romanesque architecture, Romanesque Sculpture, Archaeology of pilgrimage, and Medieval pilgrimage
From the foundation story of the hermit Dado to the presence of Arabic script on the tympanum and reliquary of Sainte Foy, Islamic materials and iconography shaped the Latin Christian shrine complex in Conques, France. This phenomenon is... more
From the foundation story of the hermit Dado to the presence of Arabic script on the tympanum and reliquary of Sainte Foy, Islamic materials and iconography shaped the Latin Christian shrine complex in Conques, France. This phenomenon is almost entirely unstudied, seen as a peripheral component of the vibrant medieval shrine site. However, an emphasis on Islamic presence was intrinsic to the success and growing prestige of the shrine of Sainte Foy in Conques during the long twelfth century.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Models constitute a frozen image, necessarily in conflict with such activated sacred space. Despite this seemingly contradictory polarization, modeling “snapshots” of activated spaces enriches our understanding and documentation of the... more
Models constitute a frozen image, necessarily in conflict with such activated sacred space. Despite this seemingly contradictory polarization, modeling “snapshots” of activated spaces enriches our understanding and documentation of the past and advances previously stagnant historiographic queries. In particular, immaterial elements such as sound and movement can be made communicable through digital reconstructions. The combination of 3D reconstructions, virtual acoustics (auralizations) and historical performance practice enables immersive simulations of the multi-sensory experience of medieval sacred spaces.
Responding in part to the sensory turn, this workshop seeks papers that address the lost or ephemeral aspects of premodern sacred spaces in two senses:
- material, installation, or object-oriented holistic approaches to reconstruction,
- innovative approaches to modeling or reconstructing embodied experience, visually and aurally induced imaginaries, and sensorial interactions with sacred space through, for example, agent-based modeling.
Workshop takes place in Rome, at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, 29-30 May 2025
Responding in part to the sensory turn, this workshop seeks papers that address the lost or ephemeral aspects of premodern sacred spaces in two senses:
- material, installation, or object-oriented holistic approaches to reconstruction,
- innovative approaches to modeling or reconstructing embodied experience, visually and aurally induced imaginaries, and sensorial interactions with sacred space through, for example, agent-based modeling.
Workshop takes place in Rome, at the Bibliotheca Hertziana – Max Planck Institute for Art History, 29-30 May 2025
Research Interests:
Research Interests: History, Cultural History, Cultural Studies, Medieval History, Cultural Heritage, and 12 morePilgrimage, Culture, Medieval Europe, Romanesque Art, Medieval Art, Early Medieval Art, Pilgrimage and Art, Romanesque architecture, Romanesque Sculpture, Romanesque Wall Painting, Camino de Santiago, and Medieval pilgrimage
Drawing performance studies into the larger field of medieval art history, this session seeks to address the methodological unity between materiality, sensory experience, and activation studies through the paradigm of “social sculpture.”... more
Drawing performance studies into the larger field of medieval art history, this session seeks to address the methodological unity between materiality, sensory experience, and activation studies through the paradigm of “social sculpture.” Since Joseph Beuys introduced the term in the late 1960s, contemporary art historians investigated the potentialities of sculpture and bodies-as-sculpture to shape social communities and identity through performance. This session proposal seeks to identify ways in which this phenomenon can be applied to the study of art in the Global Middle Ages.
Transformative and performative, medieval art was integrated into the lived experience of everyday people through religious and political institutions in the form of procession, liturgy, and urban planning. Medieval viewers responded to art through offerings, drawing, graffiti, and ritual actions. We invite papers that might address how medieval sculptural programs shaped and transformed various social, political, or religious communities through direct and indirect contact. We welcome investigations excavating premodern performance practices through the paradigm of social sculpture.
We seek to open this relatively new field of study through a diverse panel focused on different geographies across Afroeurasia and welcome papers focused on subjects from the fifth to sixteenth century. Please submit the proposed paper title, affiliation, and an abstract of no more than 250 words for this in-person session through the ICMS portal AND email them to aa8765@nyu.edu and kristen.racaniello@gmail.com by September 15th.
Transformative and performative, medieval art was integrated into the lived experience of everyday people through religious and political institutions in the form of procession, liturgy, and urban planning. Medieval viewers responded to art through offerings, drawing, graffiti, and ritual actions. We invite papers that might address how medieval sculptural programs shaped and transformed various social, political, or religious communities through direct and indirect contact. We welcome investigations excavating premodern performance practices through the paradigm of social sculpture.
We seek to open this relatively new field of study through a diverse panel focused on different geographies across Afroeurasia and welcome papers focused on subjects from the fifth to sixteenth century. Please submit the proposed paper title, affiliation, and an abstract of no more than 250 words for this in-person session through the ICMS portal AND email them to aa8765@nyu.edu and kristen.racaniello@gmail.com by September 15th.
