{"id":1267,"date":"2025-08-27T10:56:03","date_gmt":"2025-08-27T10:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/?p=1267"},"modified":"2025-09-24T13:26:11","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T13:26:11","slug":"meet-our-colleagues-maria-s-thomas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/?p=1267","title":{"rendered":"Meet our team: Maria S. Thomas"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Starting on September 1st, Maria is the second researcher to join the GenAut team. She will be working on the Syriac side of the project. <strong><em>Welcome aboard, Maria!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"542\" height=\"578\" src=\"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Maria-S-Thomas.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1264\" style=\"width:840px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Maria-S-Thomas.jpg 542w, https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Maria-S-Thomas-281x300.jpg 281w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 542px) 100vw, 542px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Trained in art history and theology at the Universities of York, Oxford, Salzburg, and VU Amsterdam, Maria is interested in the textual, material, and visual cultures of premodern Syriac Christian communities. Her research broadly focuses on the materiality of texts and writing across media, and on their social, and particularly liturgical, value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Maria&#8217;s doctoral thesis at VU Amsterdam examined the \u201ctextual memorials\u201d produced at two Syriac monasteries\u2014the Monastery of Mary Magdalene in Jerusalem and the Monastery of Moses in Nebk\u2014between the eleventh and thirteenth centuries, analysing how these texts constructed and articulated collective identity and memory.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She serves as the Middle Eastern Studies editor for <em><a href=\"https:\/\/digitalorientalist.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Digital Orientalist<\/a><\/em>. Her forthcoming publications include contributions to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.degruyterbrill.com\/document\/isbn\/9783111437385\/html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Visual Culture in Medieval Syriac Traditions<\/a><\/em> (De Gruyter) and <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.journals.uchicago.edu\/journals\/spc\/speculations\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Speculations: The Centennial Issue of Speculum<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Maria had already collaborated with the project having given a paper in the <a href=\"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/?page_id=671\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">online seminar<\/a> of the project: &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/Ep9iqxDJcUk\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mary Magdalene in Twelfth-Century Syriac Fenqitho Manuscripts from Jerusalem.<\/a>&#8220;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Starting on September 1st, Maria is the second researcher to join the GenAut team. She will be working on the Syriac side of the project. Welcome aboard, Maria! Trained in art history and theology at the Universities of York, Oxford, Salzburg, and VU Amsterdam, Maria is interested in the textual, material, and visual cultures of&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1267"}],"version-history":[{"count":26,"href":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1462,"href":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1267\/revisions\/1462"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/genaut.univie.ac.at\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}