Ravinder S. Binning

Ravinder S. Binning specializes in the late antique and medieval art and architecture of the Greek world as it spanned the Mediterranean, Europe and Northeast Africa. His first book, The Medieval Art of Fear (The University of Chicago Press, 2026) is the first major study of fear in medieval art, locating the aesthetics of fear as immanent to strategies of space, matter and scale. It tracks the art of fear from places like Sinai, Jerusalem, and Constantinople to France, Italy and forward to early modern colonial fronts. His second book project focuses on the aesthetic and spatial culture of medieval Nubia, and the broader scene of art where Nilotic, Mediterranean and Saharan cultures merged. On this topic, Binning was primary organizer of a symposium at the Kunsthistorisches Institut in Florence, “Medieval Nubia in a Global Horizon” and presented recently at Africa & Byzantium, the symposium held at Dumbarton Oaks following the exhibition of the same title at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Cleveland Museum of Art. He is developing a third book project on caves and environmental liminality in the premodern Mediterranean.

Binning’s research has been supported by the Kunsthistorisches Institute in Florence, Dumbarton Oaks, and the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts, National Gallery of Art in Washington.

Dr. Binning earned an M.A. and Ph.D. in medieval art history from Stanford University. Binning pursued Classics before turning to art history as an undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University where he also majored in Psychological and Brain Sciences. Before coming to SMU, Binning taught at the Ohio State University and Colgate University.