Chair

Since June 2026
Full Professor for Art History and Material Culture (W3), University of Passau.

March 2026 – June 2026
Research Fellow, International Research Center for Cultural Studies (IFK), Vienna.

2023–2026
Professor of Global and European Art History of the Middle Ages, Leipzig University (W3, fixed term)

2023
Habilitation, University of Leipzig, Department of Art History

Fall 2022/23
Visiting Full Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Art History, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich (W2, fixed term)

2016–2022
Assistant Professor, Department of Art History, Leipzig University

Fall 2021/22
Senior Fellow, Center for Anatolian Civilizations (ANAMED), Koç University, Istanbul

2019
Andrew W. Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in Byzantine Studies, Boğaziçi University, Istanbul

2015/16
Adjunct Professor, Department of Art History, Humboldt University, Berlin

2015
Doctorate, Department of Byzantine Studies and Art History, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich

2013–15
Adjunct Professor, Department of Byzantine Studies and Byzantine Art History, Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich

2013–2014
Visiting Scholar (Fulbright Fellow), Department for Art and Archaeology, Columbia University in the City of New York

2012
Adjunct Professor, Department of Art History, Humboldt University, Berlin

2010
Magister Artium (M.A.), Department of Art History, Humboldt University, Berlin

2006–2007
Middlesex University, London, Department of Art History and Department of British Literature, Erasmus Exchange

2026
Archaeo Art History: German-Slavic Encounters in the Altmark and East of the River Elbe, Universitätsbibliothek Leipzig und GWZO Leipzig, 8./9.10.2026 (with Prof. Dr. Gregory Bryda, Columbia University, New York)

Boundless Byzantium: Post-conquest Material Culture After the End of Byzantine Rule, Roundtable at the 25^th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Vienna.

2023
Interreligiosität: Transformationen des Sakralen in der Kunst und Kultur Italiens (Forum Kunstgeschichte Italiens), conference, Universität Leipzig. Section chair for the panel Provenance Research in the Premodern Era: The Transfers of Objects and Narratives of Acquisition (Co-chair Isabelle Dolezalek, Greifswald).

2022
Connecting the Euromediterranean Cultures Through Venice, panel at the 24th International Congress of Byzantine Studies, Istanbul/Venice (Co-chair Sabine Feist, Bo).

Manifestations of the Sacred, session, 36^th Kunsthistorikertag, Stuttgart (Co-chair Nadja Horsch, Leipzig).

Beyond Transfer and Revival: Narrative Creativity in Medieval Italian Mural Decoration (1000–1250), conference panel, College Art Association (CAA), Chicago (Co-Chair Alison Locke Perchuk, Los Angeles). Sponsored by the Italian Art Society.

2020
“Living in a Material World”: Understanding Artifacts Through their Materiality, international summer school in cooperation with the Dpt. of Archaeology, Leipzig.

2016–2020
Lecture Series: Material Culture in Byzantium and the Medieval West (Leipzig University in cooperation with Hochschule für Technik, Wirtschaft und Kultur/HTWK and with the Leibniz Center for History and Culture of Eastern Europe/GWZO).

2019
De-marginalizing Byzantium (Venice Dialogues), workshop at the Centro Tedesco di Studi Veneziani, Venice (Co-organizer Ivan Foletti, Brno).

2018
Picturing the Present: Gegenwart im Bild und Bild in der Gegenwart, international conference, University of Leipzig (with Andrew Griebeler, Duke).

Natural Disasters, Sacred Time, and Eschatology in the Eastern Mediterranean, panel at the 105^th College Art Association Annual Conference, New York (with Heba Mostafa, Toronto).

2016
Picturing the Present: Structuring the Medieval Beholder’s Relation Towards Time, 51^st International Congress on Medieval Studies, Kalamazoo (with Andrew Griebeler). Sponsored by the International Center for Medieval Art (ICMA).

2015
Erzeugung und Zerstörung von Sakralität zwischen Antike und Mittelalter, international conference at Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich.

Monographs and Edited Volumes

Visionserwartung: Visualisierung und Präsenzerfahrung des Göttlichen in der Spätantike, Spätantike – Frühes Christentum – Byzanz. Reihe B Studien und Perspektiven, vol. 43 (Wiesbaden: Reichert 2017).

Bergmeier, Armin; Erhard, Esther (eds.), Vergessenes Erbe: Die Leipziger Kunstgeschichte in der DDR 1946–1989 (Leipzig, 2026).

Armin Bergmeier (ed.), The Spoliated Past. Heritage, Antiquarianism, and Byzantine Material Culture Across Time and Space, Sonderband der Mitteilungen zur spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte, vol. 9 (Wiesbaden: Reichert 2025).

Armin Bergmeier; Andrew Griebeler (eds.), Time and Presence in Art: Moments of Encounter (200-1600 CE), Sense, Matter, and Medium: New Approaches to Medieval Material and Literary Culture, vol. 5 (Berlin: De Gruyter, 2022). [Double Blind peer review]

Armin Bergmeier; Katharina Palmberger; Joseph Sanzo (eds.), Erzeugung und Zerstörung von Sakralität zwischen Antike und Mittelalter = Distant Worlds Journal Ergänzungsband 1 (Heidelberg: Propylaeum 2016).

Articles (selection)

„Einleitung: Vom Wert der Kunstwissenschaft in der DDR,“ in: Vergessenes Erbe: Die Leipziger Kunstgeschichte in der DDR 1946–1989, ed. by Armin Bergmeier and Esther Erhard (Leipzig, 2026), 10–31.

“The Pastiche Past: Medieval Venice’s Displays of Its Cultural Heritage and the Myth of Victory over Byzantium,” Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes 88 (2025): 33–75.

“The Movement of History: Negotiating the Path to the Future in the Twelfth-Century Crypt Frescoes at Anagni Cathedral,” Speculum 100.3 (2025): 677–715.

“Who Inherited Antiquity? The Concept of Cultural Continuity in the Seljuk and Early Ottoman Eastern Mediterranean,” Acta ad archaeologiam et artium historiam pertinentia 38 = The Longue Durée of Cultural Heritage: Curation of the Past From Antiquity to the Present, ed. by Kristin Aavitsland and Marianne Ritsema van Eck (2025): 23–47.

A. Bergmeier, Ayşe Ercan and Alessandra Ricci, „Mapping Transformations in Central Anatolia: Interim Report of the Second Season of the Museum Survey Project in Akşehir/Philomelion (2024 season),“ Anatolia Antiqua 32 (2025): 175–195.

„Reuse and Reconfiguration in the Churches of Mani: Evidence for the Closing of Chancel Screens After the End of the Byzantine Era,“ in: The Spoliated Past. Heritage, Antiquarianism, and Byzantine Material Culture Across Time and Space = Mitteilungen zur spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 9 (Wiesbaden: Reichert 2025), 105–150.

„Spolia and Heritage in Byzantium: A Brief Introduction,“ in: The Spoliated Past. Heritage, Antiquarianism, and Byzantine Material Culture Across Time and Space = Mitteilungen zur spätantiken Archäologie und Byzantinischen Kunstgeschichte 9 (Wiesbaden: Reichert 2025), 7–18.

A. Bergmeier, Ayşe Ercan and Alessandra Ricci, „Mapping Transformations in Central Anatolia: Interim Report of the First Season of the Museum Survey Project in Akşehir/Philomelion (2023 season),“ Anatolia Antiqua 32 (2024): 303–319.

„Kunsthistorische Bedeutung ohne Gleichheitszeichen,“ Zeitschrift für archäologische Aufklärung 2 (2024): 85–102.

“Visualizing the Heavenly Jerusalem: Encountering the Divine in Images and Spaces in Late Antiquity,” in: Revelation’s New Jerusalem in Late Antiquity, ed. by Nathan Betz, Anthony Dupont and Johan Leemans (Stuttgart: Mohr Siebeck, 2023): 263–286.

„Forschungen zur spätantiken und mittelalterlichen Kunstgeschichte am Centro Tedesco,“ in: Deutsches Studienzentrums in Venedig 50 Jahre Wissenschaft und Kunst – Brücken am Canal Grande, ed. by Helen Geyer, Marita Liebermann, Michael Matheus (Regensburg: Schnell & Steiner 2023): 190–203.

Hans Belting and Armin Bergmeier, “Bild and Presence: Interview with Hans Belting,” in Time and Presence in Art (c. 200-1600 CE): Moments of Encounter, ed. by Armin Bergmeier; Andrew Griebeler (Berlin: De Gruyter 2022): 47–50.

“‘What Then is Time?’ Present and Presence. An Introduction,” in: Time and Presence in Art (c. 200-1600 CE): Moments of Encounter, ed. by Armin Bergmeier; Andrew Griebeler (Berlin: De Gruyter 2022): 3–20.

“Linien und Umwege: Byzanz, Nation und der Kanon der Kunstgeschichte im deutschsprachigen Raum,” 21: Inquiries into Art, History, and the Visual 2.2 (2021): 73–95.

“Natural Disasters and Time: Non-eschatological Perceptions of Earthquakes in Late Antique and Medieval Historiography,” Millennium: Jahrbuch zu Kultur und Geschichte des ersten Jahrtausends 18 (2021): 155–174.

“Antiquarian Displays of Spolia and Roman Identity: San Marco, Merbaka, and the Seljuk Caravanserais,” in Spoliation as Translation: Medieval Worlds in the Eastern Mediterranean (Convivium Suppl.), ed. by Ivana Jevtić; Ingela Nilsson (Turnhout: Brepols 2021): 76–96.

“The Production of ex novo Spolia and the Creation of History in Thirteenth-Century Venice,” Mitteilungen des Kunsthistorischen Instituts in Florenz 62.2 (2020): 126–157.

„Die Ausmalungen der Wiener Virgilkapelle und die visuelle Kultur in Byzanz, im Kaukasus, in Syrien und Nordmesopotamien,“ Convivium: Exchanges and Interactions in the Arts of Medieval Europe, Byzantium, and the Mediterranean 7.2 (2020): 2–23.

„Volatile Images: The Empty Throne and Its Place in the Byzantine Last Judgment Iconography,“ in: Cultures of Eschatology, vol. 1 „Authority and Empire in Christian, Muslim, and Buddhist Communities,“ ed. by Veronika Wieser (Berlin: De Gruyter 2020): 84–122.

„Behältnisse visueller Erfahrungen: Die Pilgerampullen von Monza und Bobbio,“ in Für Seelenheil und Lebensglück. Das byzantinische Pilgerwesen und seine Wurzeln, ed. by Despoina Ariantzi and Ina Eichner, Byzanz zwischen Orient und Okzident, vol. 10 (Mainz: RGZM 2018): 343–355.

„The Traditio Legis in Late Antiquity and its Afterlives in the Middle Ages,“ Gesta 56.1 (2017): 27–52.

„The Crucifixion as Theophany: Divine Visions in a Sermon by Anastasius Sinaita and on the Apse Wall of Santa Maria Antiqua,“ Journal of Late Antiquity 7.1 (2014): 65–85.

Since 2026
Member of the editorial board of the journal Cahiers Archéologiques: Fin de l'Antiquité et Moyen Âge

April 2023 – September 2025
Director of the Department of Art History, University of Leipzig.

Since Aug 2024
Editor for the review journal Sehepunkte (for byzantine, early, and high medieval art history).

2024–2027
Associate Member, International Center for Medieval Art (ICMA), New York. Member of the grants committee.

Since 2022
Application committee member for the international study program of the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst/DAAD (graduate students).

Since 2017
Application committee member for the international study program of the German-American Fulbright Commission (graduate students and senior scholars).

2018–2026
Head of departmental curriculum committee (Studienkommission), Department for Art History, Leipzig University.

2016 – 2026
Coordinator for the PONS exchange program, Department for Art History, Leipzig University.

2016 – 2026
Advisor for Academic Affairs, Department for Art History, Leipzig University.