Associate Professor of Art History Art History
AEIVA 227
(205) 934-8973
Education:
- M.A., Courtauld Institute of Art, University of London
- Ph.D., University of California, Santa Barbara
Areas of Specialization: Northern Renaissance Art, Late Medieval, and Early Modern Visual Culture, Early Modern Art and Science, Art and Technology
Noa Turel’s research area is Early Modern and late-medieval European art in its global context. In her current work, she draws on evidence at the intersection of the histories of art and science to explore the role of Renaissance painters in reshaping the perception of technology in Europe over the period 1300-1600, and consequently the Continent’s relationship with the world outside its boundaries.
She has authored several peer-reviewed articles and book chapters on topics ranging from women’s role in shaping visual culture in Valois courts through the relationship of technology and connoisseurship, to the epistemology of realism in the fifteenth century. The manuscript of her first book, Living Pictures: Jan van Eyck, Rogier van der Weyden, and Painting’s First Century is currently under review.
Dr. Turel has been the recipient of multiple awards. In Spring 2018 she will be a member at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where she will complete her second book project, Ingenious Secrets: Renaissance Painter-Engineers and the Rise of Technologized Europe. She was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Getty Research Institute, the Robert H. and Clarice Smith Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art, a short-term fellow at the Huntington Library in Pasadena, and a resident fellow at the Dibner Library of the History of Science and Technology at the Smithsonian Institution.
Prior to completing her graduate studies, Dr. Turel had interned and worked in curatorial departments at MoMA, the Leo Baeck Institute In New York, and the Courtauld Institute in London, and co-curated a large exhibition of contemporary body art at UCSB.
At UAB, she teaches courses in Renaissance, Baroque, and medieval art history. Dr. Turel is particularly passionate about mentoring undergraduate and graduate students and helping them pursue their professional goals. One of her recent M.A. students has gone on to teach community college art history and the other earned a full fellowship to pursue doctoral studies at Rice University. Prospective applicants for the M.A. program who are interested in any aspect of Early Modern and late medieval European art are encouraged to contact Dr. Turel directly.