Medieval pilgrimage sites will be the topic of a visiting artist lecture Thursday (Jan. 22) at West Virginia University .

Laura Gelfand, an art professor at the University of Akron, will speak onIllusionism and the Spiritual Gaze: Medieval Pilgrimage Sites and the Love of Lookingat 5 p.m. in the Creative Arts Center s Bloch Learning and Performance Hall .

The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the WVU Division of Art and Design and the Medieval/Renaissance Union at WVU .

Gelfand is chair of the Division of Art History, Education and Exhibitions at the University of Akron. She teaches classes on Northern Renaissance, Italian Renaissance, and medieval and baroque art history. She also teaches special topics courses on women in art, painting in Renaissance Venice and a symposium on Jan van Eyck.

Her most recent publications includeThe Iconography of Style: Margaret of Austria and the Church of St. Nicolas of Tolentino at Brou,Surrogate Selves: The Rolin Madonna and the Late-Medieval Devotional PortraitandA New Reading of the Tympanum of the Ste. Anne Portal of Notre Dame in Paris.

Gelfand earned a doctorate from Case Western Reserve University, a masters degree from Williams College and a bachelors degree from the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

For more information, contact the College of Creative Arts at 304-293-4841 ext. 3108.