Fittingly in this year of a global pandemic, the current issue opens with Kirstin Noreen’s examination of cult images in Rome during occurrences of disease and their association with miraculous healing and intercessory power. Mateusz J. Ferens explores the theological meaning and function of decorative-shaped text in Byzantine manuscripts and other media. Drawing on Alexei Lidov’s concept of the “spatial icon,” Kathleen Scollins reexamines the final chapters of Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment within the context of the Palm Sunday Donkey Walk ritual. Finally, Marcus C. Levitt analyzes two key pairs of scenes in War and Peace in which Tolstoy explicitly invokes Napoleonic visual images and undercuts them by juxtaposing them to Russian icons. JIS employs a double-blind peer-review process that relies on the expertise of numerous reviewers. We thank each of these anonymous readers for their generosity. We also thank our book reviewers for taking on the important task of evaluating new publications in the field.

Once again, Mary Delaney deserves unstinting praise for her expertise in designing JIS as an open-access, born-digital resource. Thanks are also due to Melanie Trottier for skillfully attending to the work of copyediting. JIS’s distinguished Editorial Board has continued to provide support and guidance, as has Kent Russell, Executive Director of the Museum of Russian Icons.

We invite you to consider JIS as a venue for your own publications. In addition to longer scholarly articles, we welcome translations of primary sources and seminal texts of interest to a wider readership; shorter pieces on museum and private collections and on individual icons; and book and exhibition reviews.

Wendy Salmond
Chapman University, Editor