Profile
Nebojša Stanković earned his Ph.D. in Early Christian, Byzantine, and medieval art and architecture. His main interests are Byzantine architecture and monumental art in relation to liturgy and ritual, as well as monastic architecture. His dissertation, entitled “Narthexes and Adjacent Spaces in the Middle Byzantine Monastic Churches of Mount Athos (10th–11th Centuries): Architecture, Function, and Meaning,” examines the relationship between monastic rites and devotional practices pertaining to the narthex, on one side, and architectural form and functional organization of this part of the church and adjoining spaces, on the other. Besides providing an exposition of their architecture, the study aims to explain various elements and features in the context of the Middle Byzantine coenobitic monastery’s organization and ritual.
A native of Serbia, Nebojša holds an M.A. in art history and archaeology (Princeton University) and an M.Arch. (University of Belgrade, Serbia). He also received post-graduate degrees in architectural preservation from the State Institute for the Protection of Cultural Monuments, Belgrade, and UniAdrion, a program under the auspices of the University of Bologna. In 2011–12, he was a Junior Fellow in Byzantine Studies at Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Collection (Harvard University), in Washington, DC. Nebojša has taught at Princeton University and the University of Niš (Serbia), worked for the Serbian preservation service, and has taken part in archaeological projects in Greece, Serbia, and Turkey. He has given lectures at the University of Niš, Dumbarton Oaks, Colgate University, and Princeton University, and presented conference papers at the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies in Sofia (Bulgaria) and at the annual meetings of the Byzantine Studies Association of North America and the Association for Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Studies.
Current Research
In addition to completing his dissertation, Nebojša is working on a long-term project on liturgical spaces within the monastic context. Examining various parts of the main church, chapels, and other structures and spaces that were used for liturgical services and devotion, as well as written sources, he has been seeking to pinpoint needs, ideas, customs, and intentions that yielded particular architectural solutions. At the same time, he has been exploring wider aspects, primarily social and cultural, of the modern architecture of the 1930s in Serbia.
Selected Publications
“Niška Banja: Modern Architecture for a Modern Spa,” in On the Very Edge: Modernism and Modernity in the Arts and Architecture of Interwar Serbia (1918–1941), ed. Jelena Bogdanović, Lilien F. Robinson, and Igor Marjanović (Leuven University Press, 2014).
“Formation of the Litē on Mount Athos: Liturgical and Historical Aspects,” Proceedings of the 22nd International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Sofia, 22–27 August 2011, vol. 2, Abstracts of Round Table Communications (Bulgarian Historical Heritage Foundation, 2011).
“Milutin Borisavljević and His Scientific Aesthetics of Architecture,” Serbian Studies 22/2 (2008; published in 2011).
“A Shift in Athonite Architecture: The Narthex of Hilandar’s Katholikon,” Thirty-Sixth Annual Byzantine Studies Conference: Abstracts (Byzantine Studies Association of North America, 2010).
“Middle- and Late-Byzantine Monastic Ossuaries: Architecture, Liturgical Function, and Meaning,” Thirty-Second Annual Byzantine Studies Conference: Abstracts (Byzantine Studies Association of North America, 2006).