Biography
Dr Liz James did her first degree at the University of Durham in Ancient History and Archaeology. She then moved south to the University of Birmingham for an MA in Byzantine Studies and finally to the Courtauld Institute to study with Robin Cormack for a doctorate in light and colour in Byzantine art. After a postdoctoral fellowship at the Barber Institute, University of Birmingham, and a British Academy Post-Doctoral Research Fellowship, she started at Sussex in 1993.

Research interests
Dr James is a Byzantine art historian whose interests spread across the whole range of the Byzantine Empire. She has worked on the perception of light and colour in Byzantine art, and is currently engaged on a research project exploring the colours of Byzantine mosaics (for 2003, as a Leverhulme Research Fellow). She is also interested in the role of women in Byzantium and has worked on Byzantine empresses. Her interests perhaps focus on the ways in which the Byzantines appear to have perceived and used their art.

Selected publications
L. James, Empresses and power in early Byzantium (Leicester, 2001)
—, 'Bearing gifts from the East: imperial relic-hunters abroad', Eastern approaches to Byzantium, ed. A. Eastmond (Aldershot, 2000), 119-132.
—, 'What colours were Byzantine mosaics?', Medieval mosaics: light, color, materials, ed. E. Borsook, F. Superbi, and G. Pagliarulo (Florence, 2000), 35-46.
—, 'As the actress said to the bishop… Byzantine women in English-language fiction', Through the looking-glass. Byzantium through British eyes, ed. R.S. Cormack and E. Jeffreys (Aldershot, 2000), 237-249.
—, (with Barbara Hill), 'Women and politics in the Byzantine empire: imperial women', Women in medieval western European culture, ed. L.E. Mitchell (1999), 157-178.
L. James, Desire and denial in Byzantium (Aldershot, 1999)
L. James, Women, men and eunuchs: gender in Byzantium (London, 1997)
—, 'Goddess, whore, wife or slave? Will the real Byzantine empress please stand up', Queens and queenship in medieval Europe, ed. A. Duggan (1997), 123-40.
—, Light and colour in Byzantine art (Oxford, 1996)
—, '"Pray not to fall into temptation and be on your guard". Antique statues in Byzantine Constantinople', Gesta, 35 (1996), 12-20.
—, 'Hysterical (hi)stories of art', review article, Oxford Art Journal (18) (1995), 143-147.
—, (with E.J.W. Hawkins), 'The east dome of San Marco: a reappraisal', Dumbarton Oaks Papers, 48 (1994), 229-242.
—, 'Monks, monastic art and the middle Byzantine church', The Theotokos Evergetis and eleventh-century monasticism, ed. M. Mullett and A. Kirby (BBTT, 6.1, Belfast, 1994), 162-175.
—, (with B. Hill and D.C. Smythe), 'Zoe. The rhythm method of imperial renewal', New Constantines, ed. P.Magdalino (Aldershot, 1994), 215-230.
—, 'Colour and the Byzantine rainbow', Byzantine and Modern Greek Studies, 15 (1991), 66-95.
—, (with Ruth Webb) '"To understand ultimate things and enter secret places": ekphrasis and art in Byzantium', Art History, 14 (1991), 1-15.