Michael W. Cothren

Professor of Art History

http://www.swarthmore.edu/Humanities/art/Faculty/mwc/mcothren.html

Professor Cothren is an authority on Gothic art and architecture, with particular expertise in stained glass, especially the stained glass of France and the glazing programs of the abbey of Saint-Denis and cathedrals of Beauvais and Rouen.

He is the author of Picturing the Celestial City: The Medieval Stained Glass of Beauvais Cathedral (Princeton University Press, 2006) and numerous articles. He is also the consultative curator of medieval stained glass at the Glencairn Museum in Bryn Athyn, Pa., and is currently writing a catalogue of that collection for the international Corpus Vitrearum project.

A more recent research interest of Cothren's is the fetish carvers of the Zuni Pueblo in New Mexico. From this work, he is in the process of developing a new course on Native American art.

Professor Cothren teaches courses in Early Medieval art and architecture, Gothic art, art historical method and theory, and occasional courses on Islamic narrative painting.

He received his B.A. from Vanderbilt University and his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University.