Dr Ana Dias

I am a historian of intellectual and visual culture, with a particular focus on the history of early medieval Iberia and Continental Europe. My research also places strong emphasis on the production and reception of medieval manuscripts, and how they can be interrogated as material objects to understand broader religious and cultural problems in the period.

I currently divide my time between lecturing at the University of Exeter and conducting research at the University of Oxford, where I am part of a multidisciplinary project on the history and materiality of late antique and early medieval relic labels, and their role within the framework of relic cults.

I studied art history (BA) and medieval history (MRes) at the Faculdade de Letras, University of Lisbon, followed by five years working as an educator at the Calouste Gulbenkian Museum. In 2014, I moved to the UK to pursue a PhD in medieval history at Durham University.

Before joining the University of Exeter, I was a Lecturer in Early Medieval History at Durham University (2021–2023), and a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of English Studies (University of London) in the ERC-funded project CULTIVATE MSS (2020–2021). I was also a Visiting Researcher at the John Rylands Research Institute, University of Manchester (2020), and held a Visiting Research Fellowship at the Schoenberg Institute for Manuscript Studies (University of Pennsylvania) in 2021.