Adam S. Cohen

I am fascinated by the tension medieval art presents as something that is both alien and yet deeply connected to the motives and concerns of people today. In my research and teaching, I try to uncover how and why people in the Middle Ages invested considerable resources in the production of art, and how that art provided a unique means of linking abstract theory (theological or philosophical) and daily practice (religious or secular). I find illuminated manuscripts a particularly fruitful area for such investigations, especially for monastic communities and audiences, and I confess that I still get a remarkable charge whenever I have the privilege of holding a medieval book much as its original users did. I have just completed a new introductory survey of medieval art and architecture, written with Jill Caskey and Linda Safran; this work is informed by recent methodological shifts in the field and expands on traditional considerations of the subject by investigating on equal terms the art from Scandinavia to the Sahara, Spain to Samarkand. My current projects include “The Decorated Psalter,” work on the Rothschild Pentateuch, and “Canada’s Synagogues: an Architectural Survey” (with Prof. Jessica Mace).

As a teacher, I encourage my students to find their own voices but always to listen to the messages being communicated by their materials. 

Selected Publications

• Medieval Book Illustration: an Introduction, with Sonja Drimmer (under consideration by De Gruyter)
• Art and Architecture of the Middle Ages: Exploring a Connected World, with Jill Caskey and Linda Safran (Ithaca, Cornell University Press, 2023)
• The Visualization of Knowledge in the Medieval and Early Modern Period, ed. Marcia Kupfer, Adam S. Cohen, J.H. Chajes (Turnhout: Brepols, 2020)

Presentations

• The Getty's Rothschild Pentateuch: Synthesis and Non-Synthesis, Lowry J. Daly, SJ Memorial Lecture in Manuscript Studies, Saint Louis Conference on Manuscript Studies, June 2025
• Spatial Exegesis in Early Medieval Bibles, La Bibbia nell’alto Medioevo, Settimana di studio del Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo 72, April 2025

Honours, Awards and Grants

• Leverhulme Visiting Professor, University of Edinburgh, 2023