Allan Langdale

Allan Langdale grew up on Vancouver Island wondering what the rest of the world was like and has spent much of his adult life finding out. Allan is an art and architectural historian, photographer, filmmaker, and travel writer who received his Ph.D. in art history from UC Santa Barbara. He has taught courses in Italian Renaissance art, Greek, Roman, Byzantine (including Georgian and Armenian architecture), and Indian and Islamic art and architecture. He currently teaches art history at UC Santa Cruz as a lecturer.

Along with several articles, Allan wrote the definitive architectural field guide to the little-known region of Turkish Cyprus, In a Contested Realm (2012) and also made the award-winning documentary film The Stones of Famagusta: the Story of a Forgotten City (2008). His travel books include Palermo: Travels in the City of Happiness (2015) and The Hippodrome of Istanbul / Constantinople: An Illustrated Handbook of its History (2019).

A popular Smithsonian Expert, Allan has traveled extensively in the eastern Mediterranean, the Black Sea region, the Middle East—including Jordan and Egypt—and India.

Charles Ingrao

Charlie Ingrao, a popular Smithsonian Journeys Expert, is professor emeritus of history at Purdue University, where he has taught a broad range of courses on the European world, including the Italian Renaissance. Although Charlie’s family hails from the peninsula’s southern half, both his extensive travels and several of his 13 books dwell on each of those parts of Habsburg Italy that we will be visiting.  He is also active in the public sphere, having given over a hundred public lectures to academic, governmental, and military audiences on five continents, and been a regular commentator for print, radio, and television media, including The News Hour with Jim Lehrer (PBS).  

Stephen Clancy

Stephen Clancy is an art and architectural historian with special expertise in ancient, medieval, and Renaissance art and architecture. A popular Smithsonian Journeys Expert, he has led more than 20 tours and cruises through the Mediterranean region and northern Europe.

Stephen Clancy recently retired as Professor of Art History at Ithaca College in Ithaca, New York, where he taught for twenty-seven years.  After receiving his Ph.D from Cornell University, Stephen taught the history of Ancient, Medieval, and Renaissance art and architecture, as well as courses on visual persuasion and the rhetoric of art.  His research career began with a focus on fifteenth-century French and Flemish illuminated manuscripts, specifically with works connected to the artists Jean Fouquet (about whom he has written a book, a book chapter, and several articles) and Simon Marmion (for which he received a 1995-96 Fulbright Scholarship in Brussels, Belgium). In addition he gave conference presentations on the role of ivory carvings within the political and economic spheres of the Byzantine empire.

Stephen also received grants from the Hewlett and Keck foundations in support of a project that investigated how technology can open up new avenues for understanding the architecture of the distant past. This culminated in his work with a team of students and faculty from the University of Melbourne in Australia on an interactive web-based undertaking entitled “Virtual Chartres Cathedral.”

In an effort to create a more inclusive curriculum, Stephen traveled to a number of medieval Jewish cultural sites in Spain, Germany, and France, where the past is being revived and reinvented in interesting and sometimes controversial ways. Out of this research he developed a course entitled “Jewish Imagery and Images of Jews.”

More recently Stephen refocused his work on interactions during the Middle Ages between Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the Mediterranean basin. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Australia National University in Canberra, investigating the roles that images play in shaping cultural identity, in a project entitled “Visualizing the Self and Others: Muslims, Jews, and Christians in Medieval Iberia.”

The academic pursuit he has enjoyed above all others is teaching and sharing his knowledge of art and architecture. He has served as a lecturer on numerous tours over the past twenty-seven years in the Mediterranean from Turkey to Spain, and in northern Europe from Scandinavia to Russia.

Sanjaya Thakur

Sanjaya Thakur is professor of Classics at Colorado College, where he also holds the Judson Bemis Professorship in the Humanities.  Professor Thakur earned a B.S. from UCLA, double-majoring in Biology and Latin, two Master's degrees (Classical Studies and Classical Art/Archaeology) and a PhD from the University of Michigan.  He has led many study tours through Greece, Italy, and Spain and is an avid traveler.  He has held a number of national leadership positions in the field of Classical Studies, including chairmanship of the Committee on Diversity in the Profession for the Society for Classical Studies.

Professor Thakur has served as the Director of the Classical Summer School at the American Academy in Rome (2021-23) and Elizabeth A. Whitehead Scholar at the American School of Classical Studies in Athens (2022-23).  He has published numerous articles, primarily on the literature and history of the age of Augustus, Rome’s first emperor. He teaches a wide range of courses on Greek and Roman history, Latin language and literature, ancient athletics, gender and sexuality in the ancient world, and Greek and Roman art and archaeology. He has also co-directed and organized an Associated Colleges of the Midwest seminar in advanced interdisciplinary learning (SAIL), entitled Mediterranean Trivium, based in Italy.

Sara James

Sara N. James, Professor Emerita of Art History at Mary Baldwin University, combines her passion for art, architecture, and gardens with her sense of adventure and love of travel. She specializes in Italian Renaissance art with a particular passion for narrative fresco programs. However, over her 30-year teaching career, Sara has taught courses in Renaissance (Italian and Northern), Baroque, Greek, Roman, Medieval, and English art and architecture, as well as interdisciplinary honors courses. She also served as director of the Renaissance Studies Abroad Program, teaching students on site in Italy and Northern Europe. An avid gardener and garden lover, she is a certified Master Gardener and a member of the Garden Club of Virginia and the Garden Club of America. Her publications include two books: Signorelli and Fra Angelico at Orvieto: Liturgy, Poetry and a Vision of the End-time (Ashgate, 2003) and Art in England from the Saxons to the Tudors: 600-1600 (Oxbow/Casemate, 2016) and numerous chapters, articles, and reviews. Her frequent speaking engagements include the Renaissance Society of America, the College Art Association, the Chief Executives Organization, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts. Sara holds a Ph.D. in Art History from the University of Virginia. She has spent three sabbaticals at the American Academy in Rome and one at the Paul Mellon Centre in London. She is a member of Phi Kappa Phi Honor Society and currently serves on the faculty of the OLLI life learning program at the University of Virginia.