Daniel Berman

Background

About Daniel Berman

Daniel S. Berman is a scholar of medieval art history, studying Gothic art (book/panel painting and sculpture) ca. 1250-1400 CE, and focusing on the development of non-narrative relic-like images of Christ’s body, blood, and wounds. Daniel’s scholarly approach focuses on the ways in which medieval Christian spirituality and devotional practice contributed to and was influenced by the development of non-narrative cult-images of Christ’s body, blood, and wounds. Daniel’s research draws on diverse methodologies within and outside of medieval art history, considering studies of medieval Christian theology, mysticism, devotional practices such as prayer, penitence, and pilgrimage, sensory experience, corporeality, gendered experiences, courtly love poetry, materiality, semiotics, and modern cultural criticism. Daniel’s MA art history thesis at Hunter College entitled, “For Now We See Through a Darkened Mirror, But Then Face to Face: Striving to See Christ ‘Beneath the Veil’ in a Fourteenth-Century French Book of Hours,” sought to shed light on the significance of a unique miniature (folio 130r) in a French Book of Hours from ca. 1375 held at the Morgan Library (MS M.90). He argues that on the one hand, its imagery evoked spiritual union with God in the Eucharist and in Heaven, as well as the concomitant need for repentance if union in any form could be achieved. On the other hand, the miniature also offered the worshiper relic-like imagery of Christ’s body in order to help them perceive that body (and His presence) in their own space. Daniel presented research from his MA thesis at the Eleventh Annual Symposium on Medieval and Renaissance Studies in St. Louis, Missouri (June, 2024), and in the Spring of 2025, he will present different research also from his thesis, at the 2025 International Congress on Medieval Studies at Western Michigan University in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Daniel has worked at various museums and cultural institutions in New York City such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cathedral Church of Saint John the Divine. An undergraduate of SUNY Purchase (‘17) in history and art history, Daniel pursued an MA in art history (with a Curatorial Certificate) from Hunter College, CUNY (‘24). Since 2023, Daniel has taught undergraduate introductory art history courses at Brooklyn College, CUNY and is currently an Adjunct Lecturer there and at Purchase College, SUNY.