
Christopher Richards
Current Courses
CRS | Title | Sec |
---|---|---|
AR101W | Reading Images | A |
AR111 | Introduction to Western Art: Prehistory through the Middle Ages | A |
AR213 | Dark Ages? Introduction to Late Antique and Early Medieval Art | A |
AR497 | Queer History of Medieval Art | A |
Christopher T. Richards is a medieval art historian with a specialization in late-medieval illuminated manuscripts of French poetry. His research considers the history of sexuality, medieval image theory, and especially their intersection. He is currently in the process of publishing a series of articles on the subject of medieval queer theories of art and the artist. When he is not investigating medieval illuminated manuscripts, Prof. Richards collaborates with contemporary artists who aspire to tell queer and feminist histories through their artworks (most recently as part of "The Invention of Truth Exhibition" at 601Artspace in New York City). Prof. Richards is also invested in making scholarship, particularly queer theoretical scholarship, more accessible to undergraduate students and the public at large. Recent efforts in this regard include art criticism in the Brooklyn Rail and appearances on podcasts. Above all, Prof. Richards loves working in the classroom with students, encouraging them to discover the fundamental queerness of what is a distant, strange, and long-lost medieval past.
Interests: Gothic art, medieval France, image theory, medieval poetry, book history and manuscript studies, Lacanian psychoanalysis, queer and trans theory, queer modern and contemporary art, the imagination.