Sarah Thompson
Associate Professor
Sarah Thompson
Associate Professor
Education
BA, University of California at San Diego; MA, Ph.D., University of California at Santa Barbara
Bio
Dr. Thompson's research addresses concepts of Gothic, and she has published on the historiography of Gothic, medieval architectural design process, the role of Saint-Denis as a French national monument, and the functions of Gothic ruins. With Jennifer Feltman (University of Alabama), she is the coeditor of The Long Lives of Medieval Art and Architecture (Routledge, 2019). Her current book project analyzes the postmedieval visual representation of Gothic architecture.
Select Scholarship
Edited Book
Thompson, Sarah, and Jennifer Feltman, eds. The Long Lives of Medieval Art and Architecture. Routledge, 2019.
Articles and Book Chapters
"Negotiating Distance: North American Scholars and Gothic Fieldwork." American Gothic: Reflections on Gothic Architectural Scholarship in America, 1925-2025. Robert Bork, ed. Brill, 2025.
“Adaptation and Audience: Remodeling Notre-Dame d’Étampes in the Thirteenth Century.” The Worlds of Villard de Honnecourt: The Portfolio, Medieval Technology, and Gothic Monuments. George Brooks and Maile S. Hutterer, eds. Brill, 2022.
“The Power of Absence: The Missing North Tower of Saint-Denis,” The Long Lives of Medieval Art and Architecture, Sarah Thompson and Jennifer Feltman, eds. Routledge, 2019.
“Building Brick City: The Design of RIT’s Henrietta Campus,” Transforming the Landscape: 50 years on the New RIT Campus, Becky Simmons, ed. RIT Press: 2018.
“Adaptation and Audience: Remodeling Notre-Dame d’Étampes in the Thirteenth Century,” AVISTA Forum Journal 22, 57-70.
“Recycling Ruins: The Critical Reception of John Aislabie’s Work at Fountains Abbey and the Changing Function of Gothic,” Third Text 25:6, 675-686.
Conference Sessions
Restoring Medieval Art and Architecture I, II, III, 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (virtual), May 2022.
Decoding Destruction and Decay, College Art Association Annual Meeting, New York, February 2017.
Conference Papers
“Medieval Building Knowledge, Backward and Forward,” Conceptualizing the Knowledge of Artists and Builders in the Global Middle Ages, Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting, University of Notre Dame, March 2024
“Interrogating Style in Porter’s Paradigm,” Session: Arthur Kingsley Porter 100 Years Later II, 58th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University, May 2023
“Gothic Images, Images of Gothic: The Promotion of Gothic in 19th-Century Photography,” Session: Drawing (New) Stories, 111th College Art Association Annual Meeting, New York, February 2023.
“Rebuilding a Medieval Tower at Saint-Denis,” Session: Restoring Medieval Art and Architecture III: Technology and Access, 57th International Congress on Medieval Studies, Western Michigan University (virtual), May 2022.
“Encountering Gothic in Early Modern Travel Literature,” Session: Buildings on the Move: Architecture and Travel Across the Pre-Modern World, College Art Association Annual Meeting (virtual), February 2022.
“Rewriting History on the Façade of Saint Denis,” Session: Arte in facciata, CIRICE 2020 IX Convegno internazionale: La città palinsesto, Università degli Studi di Napoli Federico II, June 2021.