Pamela Berger

Professor

Ph.D. New York University, 1974

Devlin Hall 426
617-552-8588
berger@bc.edu



Fields of Interest
Medieval Art History; the making of historical feature films, (including research for scripting, scriptwriting, art-historical research for production design, story boarding, directing, and post production).

Academic Profile 
Professor Berger is a filmmaker who has written, produced, and/or directed three feature films.  “Sorceress” is about a medieval woman who is accused of being a heretic but is actually a healer.  It was shot in both English, “Sorceress (English Language Version),” and French “Sorceress (French with English Subtitles).”  Both versions are now available on DVD. The second film, which she wrote, produced and directed is “The Imported Bridegroom.”  It’s a comedy set in Boston in 1900 about a father who tries to find, back in the Old Country, a perfect bridegroom for his Americanized daughter.  She takes one look at the boy he brings back and is appalled.  This film is also in DVD.  The third film, “Kilian’s Chronicle: The Magic Stone” is about an Irish slave who escapes from a Viking ship and is rescued by Native Americans five hundred years before the arrival of Columbus.

Professor Berger teaches Medieval Art, from 300 CE through 1425.  Her special interest is Iconography, i.e. the meaning of the image in the context of its time, and most of her research deals with iconographic interpretation.  

Filmography
"Sorceress (English Language Version)” and “Sorceress (French with English Subtitles),” 1987, Story, co-scriptwriter, producer.

Pamela Berger, “The Story and Scripting of Sorceress: A Companion Booklet to the DVDs”  of “Sorceress (English Language Version)” and “Sorceress (French with English Subtitles)."

For more information on "The Sorceress"

 

“The Imported Bridegroom,” 1989, (based on a story by Abraham Cahan), scriptwriter, producer, director.

For more information on "The Imported Bridegroom"

 

“Kilian’s Chronicle: The Magic Stone,” 1994, scriptwriter, producer, director. 

For more information on "Killian's Chronicle: The Magic Stone"

Publications

• "Two Insignia from the Notitia Dignitatum," in Inscape, 1978.
• "The Ardagh Chalice, Numerology, and the Stowe Missal, "Eire-Ireland, Vol. 4, No. 3, Fall 1979. The Insignia in the Notitia Dignitatum, (Garland, New York, 1981).
• "Many-Shaped Art, Archaeology, and the Tain, "Eire-Irland, Vol. 17, No. 4, Winter 1982.
• "The Bisexual Deity at Les Bolards and Gallo-Roman Springwater Therapies," Révue Archéologique de l'Est, Fall 1984.
• The Goddess Obscured, Beacon Press, Boston, 1985.
• "The Historical, the Sacred, the Romantic: Medieval Texts into Irish Watercolor," in Visualizing Ireland, Faber & Faber, 1993.
• "The Star System: A Mediated Form of Censorship in the Creative Process of Filmmaking," Agni, Vol. 31/32.
• "The Film Sorceress: A Twentieth-century Recreation of a Medieval Memory," Memory in the Middle Ages, ed. by Nancy Netzer and Virginia Reinberg, 1995.
• "Modern Propagators of Ancient Legends and Traditions: Mythic Menory or Serendipity?" in Re/Dressing Cathleen: Contemporary Works from Irish Women Artists, 1997,
  pp. 57-62.
• "Images of Animosity, Visions of Vengeance," Religion and the Arts , Volume
  3-1 (1999).
• "The Roots of Anti-Semitism in Medieval Visual Imagery: An Overview," Religion and the Arts, Spring, 2000.
• "Grain Miracle" Medieval Folklore, An Encyclopedia of Myths, Legends, Tales, Beliefs, and Customs, Carl Lindahl, John McNamara, & John Lindow, editors, ABC-Clio, Santa Barbara, California, 2000, 444-446.
• "Sculpted Body Parts from Ancient Healing Sanctuaries," in The Plume and the Palette, edited by Pamela Berger and Jeffery Howe, New York, Peter Lang, Inc. 2001.
• "Crusade and Jihad: The Wars Known as Holy," Religion and the Arts, 2001.
• "Archaeology, Iconography and the Recreation of the Past in Iron Age Holy Lands," Religion and The Arts, (in press).
• "Sacred Landscapes: Two Watercolors by George Petrie," Eire/Land, edited by Vera Kreilkamp, 2003.
• “The Depiction of Jews in Early Passion Iconography,” in Pondering the Passion, edited by Philip A. Cunningham, Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc. 2004.
• “Avarice, Money and Judgment Day,” in Sacred/Secular, edited by Nancy Netzer and Virginia Reinberg, McMullin Museum, 2006.
• “Mice, Arrows and Tunors: Medieval Plague Iconography North of the Alps, in Piety and the Plague, Franco Mormando, editor, Truman State University Press, 2007.