Professor Jelena Todorovic Phd, MA, BA

Received BA in the History of Art (1993-1998) at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade. Continued studies for both MA and PhD at University College London (UCL – 1998-2004) where she also worked, first as a teaching assistant then later as a part-time lecturer. In 2005 she was transferred to the University of the Arts in Belgrade where she presently teaches in the Faculty of Fine Arts as an Associate Professor.

Also remained a visiting lecturer at UCL London and holds visiting professorships at the University of Technical Sciences in Novi Sad, Serbia and the Universita deli Studi di Trieste in Italy. In the previous four years she has also been working as an external advisor for the Civici Musei di Storia ed Arte in Trieste.

Although an art historian by training, her interests have always been more directed towards early modern cultural history, including the broad areas of festival culture, the art and propaganda, concepts of time and transience, and the understanding of liminal spaces in the visual arts. Teaching, both at undergraduate and postgraduate levels, aiming to introduce the approach of cultural history and interdisciplinary which is so important both for future artists and theoreticians.

One of the important subjects of Professor Todorovic’s research, and also the topic her dissertation, is the spectacles of state and, more widely, the festival culture and performance space of early modern Europe. She has taught in this area for seven years in the Department of Scene Design at the University of the Arts, Belgrade (2001-2008). Her publications on this subject, beside a number of articles, include two books – An Orthodox Festival Book in the Habsburg Empire – Zaharija Orfelin’s Festive Greeting, Ashgate 2006; and Entitet u senci-mapiranje moći i državni spekakl u Karlovačkoj mitropoliji, Platoneum, 2010.

Professor Todorovic is currently preparing for publication her latest book “The Baroque Time” that concerns the concepts of time and transience in Baroque culture. This book aims to explain the obsession of Baroque man with the transitory nature of human existence and of life itself. It draws not only upon the field of visual arts but also of that of poetry and literature.

Research interests:

– Early modern festival culture, and universality of the spectacles of state

– The issues of time and transience

– The liminal spaces of European culture

– The utopian spaces and domains

– The culture of 18th and 19th century Trieste

Selected bibliography:

O ogledalima ružama i ništavilu – koncept vremena i prolaznosti u kulturi baroknog doba, (Of Mirrors, roses and nothingness -the concept of time and transience in the Baroque culture), Clio, Belgrade, 2012. (book)

Invisible cities – the project of translation of literary space of Calvino’s “Invisible cities” into the architectural space, (Project was realised with doctoral students of Architecture, Faculty of Technical sciencies Novi Sad, Serbia), Exhibition in Novi Sad 12.10.2012.

Documentary series -. Trieste the crossroads of nations, cultures and languages (5 episodes) for RTS (Radio Television Serbia), broadcasted March-May 2012.

Entitet u senci: mapiranje moći i državni spekakl u Karlovačkoj Mitropoliji, Platoneum, Novi Sad, 2010. ISBN 978-86-85869-43-3

An Orthodox Festival Book in the Habsburg Empire – Zaharija Orfelin`s Festive Greeting XIX of Mojsije Putnik in 1757, Ashgate, London, 2006. ISBN 0-7546-5611-X

“The Life as Spectacle-Eugenio Popovich and the Arts” in Cultura Serba a Trieste (ed. Marija Mitrovic), Argo, Lecce 2010, ISBN 978-88-8234-134-3

“O prirodi i vremenu” in Zbornik Narodnog muzeja za istoriju umetnosti XIX-2 (2010), ISSN 0352-2466

“Putovanje kroz lavirint – proučavanje i sistematizacija kolekcije likovne umetnosti Dvorskog kompleksa“, in Saopštenja XLII (2010), YU ISSN 0354-4346

“Between the Spectacle and the Fatherland or Spectacle as a Fatherland” in Serbia my Case, (ed. Tatjana Dadić-Dinulović), Clio, Beograd 2008

ISBN 978-86-908463-1-3

“Of Power and Memory: the ceremonial space and political spectacle in Belgrade 2000-2007”, tekst za Teatar, politika, grad ‘ studija slučaja (Srbija na Praškom kvadrijenalu scenskog dizajna), 2007. ISBN 978-86-910201-0-1

“The Dual Body Politic or the Myth of Power? The Ideology of sovereignty in the Orthodox Archbishopric within the Habsburg Empire” in Images of the Body Politic, Bari, 2007. ISBN 978-88-87235-39-8