Biography

Pamela Merrill Brekka has a PhD in Art History (University of Florida '12), and an MA in Art History (Rutgers University '99). Her specialties are Flemish and Dutch art. Her research interests include:  Renaissance cartography; the significance of underdrawings and the master's 'hand' in Netherlandish painting; Reformation era exegesis and the illustrated bible, and the Jewish construct in early modern Europe. Brekka's publications include:  "The Living Tabernacle in Post-Tridentine Biblical Literature," in (forthcoming) eds. Walter Melion, Michel Weeman and Bret Rothstein, The Anthropomorphic Lens: Anthropomorphism, Microcosmism and Analogy in Early Modern Thought and Visual Arts (Leiden: Brill, 2013); "The Antwerp Polyglot Bible's 'New World Indian-Jew' Map as a Reflection of Empire," Imago Mundi: International Journal for the History of Cartography, vol. 63, part 2 (June 2011): 240-243; "Pieter de Hooch," "Nicolaes Maes," "Pieter Brueghel the younger," and "Jan Breughel the elder," in Absolutism and the Scientific Revolution 1600-1720, ed. Christopher Baker (Westport, 2002), and "An Early Netherlandish Adoration of the Magi," Record of the Art Museum, Princeton University, vol. 59 (2000): 56-61. She is the recipient of a Newberry Library Fellowship in the History of Cartography (2010), and is a University Women's Club Scholar (UF '10). Dr. Brekka teaches several courses at the University of Florida, including:  The History of Jewish Art (ARH 2930/JST 2930); Dutch Baroque in the Age of Rembrandt and Vermeer (ARH 4930/ARH 6916); Introduction to the Principles and History of Art I (ARH 2050), and Art & Humanity: Introduction to the Visual Arts from a Global Perspective (forthcoming).