Alexandra Vukovich

Alexandra is a medieval historian working on early Rus, the Byzantine Empire, and Eurasia. During her MA studies at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales, Alexandra worked on Byzantine history and culture through the prism of anthropology, focussing on the process of distinction that led to the formation of elite groups in the late medieval Balkans. At Cambridge, Alexandra expanded her study of the Byzantine cultural sphere to early Rus and Muscovy. The book resulting from her doctorate and initial post-doctoral studies is entitled Politics and Ritual in Early Rus. Alexandra’s current research on self-representation in Byzantine imitation coinages of the northern world highlights the contradictions between written sources and material culture within the region, pointing to different interpretations of the Byzantine symbolic landscape in creating both contingent and distinct political groups. In the years following her doctorate, Alexandra has held fellowships at Newnham College (Cambridge), the Dumbarton Oaks Centre for Byzantine Studies, she was an Onassis Fellow at the British School at Athens, and is currently a British Academy Postdoctoral Research Fellow.