Dr Tom Nickson

Reader in Medieval Art & Architecture

Office hours: Thursdays, 2-3pm. Please sign up for a slot

My research and teaching fall broadly into two categories: Gothic art and architecture across Europe, and encounters between Christian, Islamic and Jewish traditions, especially in medieval Iberia. Many of these issues were addressed in my first book, (2015), and I am now working on a new book, Architecture in Medieval Spain & Portugal: Seven Moments, which will explore architecture across the Iberian Peninsula (including Spain, Portugal and al-Andalus) from the twelfth to the fifteenth century. I am also interested in questions of architecture and light, and in technologies of reproduction in the 19th century – the focus of a forthcoming display in the 91ÖÆƬ³§ Gallery’s Project Space.

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Teaching

MA:

BA:

  • ‘Power and Piety: Medieval Westminster’ (BA1)
  • ‘Facsimile Debates: AI to Plato’ (BA2)
  • ‘Art & Identities in Medieval Spain’ (BA3)

PhD Supervision

I welcome applications from prospective PhD students and advise you to contact me as early as possible in the application process (ideally before December, to begin the following October)

Current

  • , ‘The cloister of Pamplona Cathedral’ (due September 2022). Funded by CEEH.
  • Jane Stewart, ‘The monument to Sir James Hales (d. 1589) in Canterbury Cathedral’ (due September 2024).
  • Natalia Muñoz Rojas, ‘Women, new churches, and the conquest of Granada’ (due September 2025). Funded by CHASE
  • Sophia Dumoulin, ‘Westminster Abbey After the Plantagenets: Worship, Power, Destruction & Transformation, 1399-1603’
  • Ricardo Mandelbaum, ‘Ramon Lull’s Visual Culture: Intersections between Art, Architecture and Lullism in Catalonia, Paris, Montpellier and Mallorca in the late 13th and 14th centuries’

 

Completed

  • , ‘Juan Guas and Gothic Architecture in Late Medieval Spain: Collaborations, Networks, Geographies’ (2020)
  • , ‘The Altar in Medieval Castile: a Social and Material History’ (2018)
  • , ‘Decorative Vaults in Fourteenth-Century England’ (2016)
  • , ‘The Lost Romanesque Cathedral of Tortosa (Catalonia)’ (2016)

Research interests

  • The spread of Gothic architecture in medieval Europe and technologies of architectural transmission.
  • Medieval Europe and the Mediterranean, especially Iberia and England.
  • 19th– and 20th-century architectural criticism and revivalism.
  • The cult of Thomas Becket.
  • Church furnishings and inventories.
  • Epigraphy and orality in Christian and Islamic contexts.
  • The reception of Islamic art and architecture in medieval Europe.
  • Architecture and light.
  • Antiquarianism in Early Modern Spain and England.
  • Photography, plaster casts, and technologies of reproduction in the 19th century.

Lecture recordings:

Recent publications

Books and edited books

  • Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention andÌýImitation, eds T. Nickson and N. Jennings, 91ÖÆƬ³§ Books Online, 2020.
  • , ed. T. Nickson. Special issue of theÌýJournal of the British Archaeological AssociationÌý(2020)
  • . Penn State University Press, 2015.
  • ‘‘. Special issue of theÌýHispanic Research Journal, eds T. Nickson, M. Trusted and J. Schrader,Ìý16: 5Ìý(October 2015).
  • Ìýeds T. Nickson and K. Donahue-Wallace. Special 2012 issue of theÌýHispanic Research Journal, with papers from a conference organised in York in July 2011.

Essays and articles

  • ‘‘, inÌýThe Routledge Companion to the Global Renaissance, eds S. Campbell and S. Porras, Routledge, 2024.
  • ‘‘, in El mundo de las catedrales: Pasado, presente y futuro. Actas del Congreso Internacional VIII Centenario Catedral de Burgos, ed. Carlos Izquierdo Yusta et al, 2022, pp. 653-661
  • ‘The Parish Church Illuminated’, inÌýTowards an Art History of the Parish Church, 1200-1399, ed. M. Bernstein, 91ÖÆƬ³§ Books Online, 2021.
  • ‘‘, inÌýRevista de Poetica Medieval, 2021
  • ‘Describing Architecture in Thirteenth-Century Spain’, inÌý, ed. J. Luxford, 2021
  • ÌýtoÌý, ed. T. Nickson. Special issue of theÌýJournal of the British Archaeological AssociationÌý(2020)
  • , inÌýJournal of the British Archaeological Association, 173 (2020), 78-99.
  • ‘Gothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation’, introductory essay inÌýGothic Architecture in Spain: Invention and Imitation, eds T. Nickson and N. Jennings, 91ÖÆƬ³§ Books Online, 2020.
  • , inÌýBeauty and Persuasion in Medieval ArtÌý(special issue ofÌýCodex Aquilarensis, 35, 2019), 139-156.
  • ,ÌýOxford Bibliographies OnlineÌý(2019).
  • (with Almudena Cros), ‘Constructing Pardon in Medieval Toledo’.ÌýMedieval Studies in Honour of Peter Linehan, eds F. Hernández, R. Sánchez Ameijeiras and E. Falque (2018), 493-522.
  • ‘’.ÌýResounding Images: Medieval Intersections of Art, Music, and Sound, eds S. Boynton and D. ReillyÌý(2015), 91-107.
  • ‘’.ÌýViewing Inscriptions in the Late Antique and Medieval World, ed. A. Eastmond (2015), 170-186.
  • ‘‘,ÌýArt HistoryÌý38: 5 (2015), 838-61.
  • .ÌýArt in TranslationÌý7: 1 (2015): 9-38
  • ‘‘.ÌýThe Medieval History JournalÌý15, no. 2 (2012): 319–354.
  • ‘‘.ÌýThe Hebrew Bible in the Fifteenth Century: Exegesis, Literature, Philosophy, and the Arts, eds J. Decter and A. Prats (2012): 41–60.
  • . InÌýGestaÌý50, no. 1 (2011): 71–89.
  • ÌýSpiritual Temporalities in Late-Medieval Europe, ed. M. Foster (2010): 99–126.
  • .ÌýLa Catedral Primada de Toledo, ed. R. Gonzálvez (2010): 148–161.
  • .ÌýImmediationsÌý2, no. 2 (2009): 19–29.
  • ‘‘.ÌýZeitschrift für KunstgeschichteÌý72, no. 1 (2009): 1–14.
  • ‘‘.ÌýArchitectural HistoryÌý48 (2005): 49–68

Reviews

  • J
  • , inÌýJournal of the Society of Architectural Historians, 2021
  • ÌýinÌýArtsÌý(2021)
  • Rose Walker,ÌýArt in Spain and Portugal from the Romans to the Early Middle Ages. Routes and Myths, inÌý, 170, 2017, pp. 210-212.
  • Paul Binski,ÌýGothic Wonder: Art, Artifice and the Decorated Style,Ìý1290-1350, inÌý, 39: 1, 2016, pp. 152-155.
  • Jacqueline Jung,ÌýThe Gothic Choir Screen, inÌý, 14.1, 2014, pp. 139-141.
  • Pamela Patton,ÌýArt of Estrangement. Redefining Jews in Conquest Spain, inÌý, 8.1, 2013.
  • Christabel Watson,ÌýThe Romanesque Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela: A Reassessment, inÌý, 163, 2010, pp. 182-185.

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