English Professor Vessela Valiavitcharska Awarded Fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study

The prestigious fellowship will allow Valiavitcharska to continue her work on how medieval Byzantine scholars understood language and rhetoric.

By Chelsea McLin ’19 M.A.

Associate Professor Vessela Valiavitcharska has been awarded a fellowship at the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, New Jersey, for the 2026–27 academic year. She will work on her book project, “Logos and Rhetoric in Middle Byzantine Rhetorical Thought,” which examines how medieval Byzantine scholars understood the function of language and the work of rhetoric.

Membership in the IAS recognizes scholars whose work advances fundamental research and provides time for focused study within an international community of leading researchers. Each year, IAS welcomes more than 250 scholars from around the world through a highly competitive selection process. Founded in 1930, the institute has served as a home for groundbreaking research across the humanities, mathematics, natural sciences and social sciences, and counts Albert Einstein, J. Robert Oppenheimer and numerous Nobel Prize winners among its former faculty and scholars.

In 2014, Valiavitcharska published “Rhetoric and Rhythm in Byzantium: The Sound of Persuasion” which examines how rhythm serves as an important tool for speech and writing in medieval Byzantine and Old Church Slavonic literature. She has also published articles on classical and medieval rhetoric, on argumentation and style, and on argument visualization.

Currently, Valiavitcharska draws on medieval rhetorical commentaries to investigate the underlying philosophy of language that shaped Byzantine approaches to rhetoric and literary expression. While Byzantine rhetoric has long been recognized as foundational to the culture's intellectual life, many aspects of its teaching methods and theories of language remain understudied. Valiavitcharska is looking forward to continuing her exploration of the unique verbal expression, language form and rhetorical figures from Byzantine scholars. 

"Byzantium was an extraordinarily verbally creative culture," Valiavitcharska said. "I'm fascinated by that, and it's a continual source of inspiration for me."

Valiavitcharska said she is particularly looking forward to engaging with researchers working on interdisciplinary projects at IAS and with colleagues at nearby Princeton University. She plans to consult Byzantine manuscripts in regional collections and participate in the institute's seminars and discussions.

"I'm excited to join the conversations with people from very different fields," she said.