Post-Doctoral Fellow, Byzantine Art and Archaeology
Mann’s research seeks to expand the view of the Byzantine monastery beyond the katholikon through the study of monastic landscapes. Using archaeological data supported by textual and art historical evidence, his dissertation, “Assembling a Monastic Landscape: Structures of Authority, Economy, and the Sacred in Middle Byzantine Greece,” envisions the monastic landscape as a composite entity composed of interwoven cultural landscapes of authority, economy, the sacred, and natural topography. In taking such a landscape-oriented view, the dissertation project aims to disentangle these layers and subsequently reassemble the relationships between them into a holistic rendering of a composite monastic landscape. At Dumbarton Oaks, Mann will continue to define the different layers of the monastic landscape, with the particular goal of building a comparative framework that utilizes the center’s extensive holdings in Byzantine, Pre-Columbian, and Garden and Landscape studies.
Justin Anthony Mann is a PhD candidate at the University of Virginia. He holds a bachelor’s degree in anthropology and history from the University of Wisconsin–Oshkosh and a master’s degree in anthropology from East Carolina University. Mann has participated in a range of international archaeological projects in Greece, where he is currently a survey leader for the Molyvoti, Thrace, Archaeological Project. In addition, he has worked extensively with cultural resource management firms in the American Great Plains region. He was the recipient of a Fulbright Scholarship (Fulbright Greece 2019–2020) for his dissertation research on Byzantine monastic landscapes, and he has also held the University of Virginia’s Dumas Malone Graduate Research Fellowship and Kapp Family Fellowship. His research interests include Byzantine monasticism, landscape archaeology, human geography, and the archaeology of commodities.