Dr. Ariel Fein to lead the ISM’s 2027 study tour to Sicily
We are delighted to announce that Dr. Ariel J. Fein has been appointed to coordinate the Yale Institute of Sacred Music’s (ISM) international study tour to Sicily in June 2027. As an expert in the history and reception of medieval Mediterranean visual culture with extensive teaching, research, and field experience, Dr. Fein will guide ISM students through this biennial capstone program, which immerses participants in the history, art, architecture, religious life, and cultural complexity of a selected region.
Dr. Fein’s scholarly background is exceptionally well aligned with Sicily, a region whose rich cultural intersections span Greek and Roman antiquity through the Norman era, Middle Ages, Renaissance, Baroque, and into the modern period. Today, the Italian island remains a dynamic crossroads shaped by Islamic, Jewish, Christian, and North African traditions and serves as a point of entry to Europe for refugees from Northern and sub-Saharan Africa—contexts that speak directly to Dr. Fein’s research interests in cross-cultural exchange and migration. “The ISM has an unusual concentration of expertise in Mediterranean cultures at the moment and Dr. Fein’s work in medieval Sicily deepens that strength,” noted ISM director Martin Jean. “Visiting Sicily will offer our students a unique window into a multi-cultural landscape deeply influenced by migration.”
As well as coordinating the para-curricular experiences that will prepare students and faculty for the study tour, Dr. Fein will also join the ISM faculty for the 2026–27 academic year to teach a course on Sicily and Africa. She holds a Ph.D. and a master’s degree from Yale and a master’s degree from the Courtauld Institute of Art. Her completed book manuscript, Refugee to Kingmaker: George of Antioch and the Shaping of Norman Sicilian Visual Culture, based on her award-winning dissertation advised by Yale’s Robert S. Nelson, reflects her long-standing engagement with Sicilian artistic, religious, and cultural history.
In addition to her upcoming ISM role, Dr. Fein also serves as a research assistant at the Princeton University Art Museum for the exhibition “Clay Has Memory: Creative Lineages from Africa”, and as a visiting scholar at Smarthistory, specializing in the visual cultures of Byzantium and the Islamic world. She has held multiple prestigious fellowships including a membership at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and the Jane and Morgan Whitney Fellowship in the Islamic Art Department at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She has taught at several universities and continues to publish and present widely on Islamic art, Jewish heritage, and medieval Mediterranean material culture. Read more about Dr. Fein.
Guided by Dr. Fein and other ISM faculty, students will prepare for the experience through readings, discussions, colloquia, presentations, courses, and performances in the year leading up to the trip.
We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Fein’s expertise, vision, and leadership to the ISM and look forward to the insight and inspiration she will bring to the 2027 study tour to Sicily.