Teaching

I teach a wide range of courses for the Art History BA (Prelim and Final Honours School), including options on the classical tradition, medieval and Italian Renaissance art, and theoretical approaches to art. Having also held a Lecturership in History, I continue to teach some courses for the History School.

About me

My first degree was in History (at Oxford); I then studied the History of Art for an MA (at the Courtauld Institute in London). My doctoral research (in London) was in medieval urban history. As a lecturer first in the University of Birmingham and (since 1989) in Oxford, I have studied and taught art and history in diverse ways. With the creation of a new Oxford BA in the History of Art in 2004, I moved from the Faculty of History to a Lecturership in the Department of Art History.

Research

My most recent substantial publication, researched and written jointly with Jane Garnett, is a book about belief in the miraculous power of certain pictures and statues: Spectacular Miracles: Transforming Images in Italy from the Renaissance to the Present. My recent and current work on Italian painting between 1300 and 1500 engages with Dante and sight; the early 14th century Sienese painter Duccio; and the late 15th century Sicilian painter Antonello da Messina. I also work on medieval guilds and fraternities, about which I am preparing a forthcoming book.  You can read more about my research here.

Graduate teaching

For the Master’s course in the History of Art I teach a regular option on Gothic art. For this course I also contribute to the theoretical seminar.

Recent and current doctoral students whom I have supervised have worked on: Painters in the circle of Leonardo da Vinci, beauty and the body; the imagery of dance in medieval Italy; the Adriatic as a site of cultural exchange in the fourteenth century; image and text in devotional manuscripts in northern Italy around 1400; images in early French printed editions of the Romance of the Rose; violence in thirteenth-century France; a comparative study of revolts in Italian and Flemish cities c.1350-1450. I would be glad to continue to receive proposals for research in similar areas.

Departmental webpage