Layla Seale received a B.A in Art History from the University of South Florida, and an M.A. in Art History from American University in Washington, D.C. She recently served as the 2017-2019 Kress Foundation Institutional Fellow at Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society (LUCAS) in Leiden, The Netherlands. Her dissertation examines representations of Hell, devils, and demons within fifteenth-century Northern European painting and illuminated manuscripts. Specifically, her project investigates images of demon bodies and behaviors which convey the complex intelligence, sexualities, and personalities of devils. By combining visual analysis and historical context with recent theories of animal studies, posthumanism, and monsters theory, she hopes to shed new light on demons and devils within the late medieval imagination.

After graduating with her Ph.D., Dr. Seale was awarded a postdoctoral teaching fellowship with the Program in Writing and Communication at Rice University. As a fellow, she will design and teach Freshman Writing Intensive Seminars that introduce first-year students to interesting questions or problems in their field of study.

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