Clemena Antonova

Short Biography

Clemena Antonova is an art historian (M.A., Edinburgh and D.Phil., Oxford) with interests in Eastern Orthodox theology, Russian religious philosophy, and, more generally, problems relating to the role of religion in modernity. Her current project relates to the contemporary uses of religious language in secular contexts. She has held several research fellowships, most recently at Heidelberg University (four months in 2024-2025) and at the Blavatnik Archive (three months in 2024). In 2011-2013, she contributed to Charles Taylor’s “Religion and Secularism” program at the IWM. The results of this work were published in her book Visual Thought in Russian Religious Philosophy (Routledge, 2020).

Areas of Expertise

• Art history and theory
• The history of aesthetics
• Russian intellectual history
• Russian religious philosophy with a focus on Pavel Florensky
• The art of the icon and the art of the Russian avant-garde

Selected Publications

IKONA: The Modernist Invention of the Icon in the Russian Art World, 1900s-1920s (forthcoming in 2026 with Bloomsbury Academic) 

The Russian Idea in Question: Politics, Philosophy, and Religion in Putin’s Russia (forthcoming in June 2026 with Bloomsbury Academic), co-edited with George Pattison

“The Icon in Eastern Orthodox Apophatic Thought: Perspectives from the Early Twentieth Century” in Betz, J. and Van Nieuwenhove, R., (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Apophatic Theology (Oxford University Press, 2025)

“Decontextualization as Secularization: Amalek or On the Uses of Biblical Language in Modernity,” Sobornost, vol.46/2 (2024)

“Vseedinstvo: A Russian Project of Religious Modernity and Its Contemporary Relevance” in Siljak, A., (ed.), Religion and Secular Modernity in Russian Christianity, Judaism, and Atheism (Cornell University Press, 2024)