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History of Art

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Petra Sikic

PhD supervisor: Prof. Rose Marie San Juan
Working title for PhD: 'Gesture and the Body in Early Modern Italy'

My goal in my PhD research is to reframe gesture in the Early Modern period as an embodied phenomenon. By defining gesture not just as a means of communication, but as fundamentally inextricable from the unique nature of the Early Modern body, I hope that gesture might become a far more productive concept for art historians. My project has numerous interdisciplinary implications, as gesture features heavily in the histories of science, theatre, combat, exercise and so on. Before starting my PhD, I completed my BA in History of Art at UCL, and my MPhil in History of Art and Architecture at Cambridge. My MPhil dissertation examined the concept of painterliness as applied to the changing style of Guercino. 

My research is funded by the UCL Critical Histories of Art Studentship.