Education
Ph.D. History of Art, Yale University
M.A. Medieval Studies, Catholic University of America
B.A. Art (art history), Williams College
Biography
Alison Locke Perchuk is an art historian specializing in the study of the art and architecture of medieval Europe and the Mediterranean basin, with a particular emphasis on twelfth-century Rome and central Italy. Her book, “The Medieval Monastery of Saint Elijah: A History in Paint and Stone” (Studies in the Visual Cultures of the Middle Ages, no. 17, Turnhout: Brepols, 2021; Italian translation, Rome 2023) received the 2024 Karen Gould Prize in Art History from the Medieval Academy of America, and has been lauded as “a new benchmark for medieval art history” (CAAReviews). It examines the intersecting roles of the visual arts, architecture, ritual, and landscape in the creation of communal identity as well as the role of 19th-century perceptions of the Middle Ages in shaping our understanding of the era. She publishes and speaks nationally and internationally (in both English and Italian) on medieval Italian landscape, architecture, and painting, and on medievalism, with a special emphasis on California, and her scholarship has been additionally recognized with the 2018 Van Courtlandt Elliott Award of the Medieval Academy of America and with fellowships and grants from the American Philosophical Society, the Huntington Library, the Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts at the National Gallery of Art, Washington D.C. In Summer 2024 she was a visiting scholar at the Université de Poitiers, with support from the American Philosophical Society’s Franklin Research Grant.
Dr. Perchuk holds a BA in art history from Williams College, an MA in medieval studies from the Catholic University of America, and a PhD in the history of art from Yale University. As Professor of Art History at California State University Channel Islands she teaches courses on ancient, medieval, and Islamic art. She has served as programs committee member, webmaster, and treasurer of the Italian Art Society, councilor of the Medieval Association of the Pacific, and board member of the International Center on Medieval Art. Currently she is president of MAP, secretary of the IAS, a member of the ICMA’s Finance Committee, and co-convener of the California Medieval Seminar housed at UCLA (on leave, AY 2026–27). She is currently at work on two new book projects, “Visualizing the Apocalypse in Medieval Italy: Narrative Structure, Location, Function, Meaning” and “Medieval Los Angeles: Art, Architecture, and the Quest for Identity in Prewar Southland.”
During AY 2026–2027, Dr. Perchuk is in residence at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts (CASVA) at the National Gallery of Art in Washington, D.C.,
Contact
alison[dot]perchuk[at]csuci[dot]edu
Alison Locke Perchuk, medieval art historian and medievalism scholar 