Sarah Costello, Ph.D.

Biography

Sarah Kielt Costello, Ph.D., has taught art history at UHCL since 2014. She teaches graduate and undergraduate courses in the humanities and the history of ancient art. Dr. Costello’s research focus is the visual culture of the early periods of the Ancient Near East.

In her writing, she investigates the social contexts of visual culture, especially how people store and communicate ideas, and how imagery relates to religion. She co-led a collaborative research initiative with Houston’s Menil Collection, focused on the art of the ancient Mediterranean world. She has conducted field research in Cyprus, Turkey, Israel, and Greece, and in 2013 studied in Greece as a Fulbright Fellow in the summer session at the American School of Classical Studies.

Curriculum Vitae

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Publications

• 2022 Routledge Companion to Ecstatic Experience in the Ancient World. (Diana Stein, Sarah Kielt Costello, and Karen Pollinger Foster, eds.) Routledge.
• 2020 Object Biographies, Selections from the Art of the Ancient World in the Menil Collection. (John N. Hopkins, Sarah Kielt Costello, Paul R. Davis, eds.). Menil Collection.
• 2018 Seals and Sealings in the Ancient World: Case Studies from the Near East, Egypt, the Aegean and South Asia. (Marta Ameri, Sarah Kielt Costello, Gregg Jamison, Sarah Jarmer Scott, eds). Cambridge University Press.

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Awards and Accomplishments

• UHCL University Faculty Fellowship, 2021-2022
• Piper Award, UHCL 2017
• Fullbright Greece Summer Classics Seminar Fellowship, 2013
• UH Provost Award for Excellence in Teaching, 2012

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