Professor Michael W. Cothren is Scheuer Family Professor of Humanities and Chair of the Department of Art at Swarthmore College, where he has also served as Medieval Studies Coordinator and Humanities Division Chair. He has taught specialty courses on Roman, Medieval, and Islamic art and architecture, as well as seminars on visual narrative and theory and technique, since his arrival at Swarthmore in 1978, but he really enjoys teaching the survey to Swarthmore newcomers.

His research and writings center on French Gothic art and architecture, most recently in Picturing the Celestial City, an ebook about the stained glass of Beauvais Cathedral. He works as a consulting curator at Bryn Athyn, Pennsylvania’s Glencairn Museum.