Lindsay Cook

Lindsay S. Cook (she/her) is an architectural historian, medievalist, digital humanist, translator, and digital preservation advocate. A specialist in medieval European architecture, Dr. Cook’s current research addresses architectural and artistic responses to the Gothic cathedral Notre-Dame of Paris, medievalism in African American architecture, medieval architectural space, and digital and material approaches to the valorization, conservation, and restoration of cultural heritage.

Her research on medieval, early modern, modern, and contemporary histories of Notre-Dame has recently appeared in the journals Future Anterior and Different Visions and the edited volume The Analysis of Gothic Architecture (Brill, 2023). Notre-Dame Cathedral: Nine Centuries of History, her English translation of the French-language monograph co-authored by Dany Sandron and Andrew Tallon, was published by Penn State University Press in 2020. She is currently writing a monograph about architectural and artistic responses to Notre-Dame from the 12^th century to the present.

Dr. Cook was a member of the multi-year digital humanities projects Mapping Gothic, Life of a Cathedral: Notre-Dame of Amiens, and Musiconis, and, from 2021-2024, she chaired the Digital Resources Committee of the International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA). She is a board member of the scholarly association Scientifiques de Notre-Dame, a member of the advisory board of the non-profit educational organization Handshouse Studio, and editor of The Notre-Dame Translation Project, which makes open-educational resources about the history, conservation, and restoration of Notre-Dame following the catastrophic 2019 fire available to students and the general public.

Dr. Cook teachers upper-level courses about the architectural history of the medieval world and theories and practices of conservation, as well as broader architectural history surveys.

• PhD, MPhil, and MA in Art History from Columbia University
• BA in Art History and French & Francophone Studies from Vassar College

ARTH 201: Ancient to Medieval Architecture; ARTH 202: Renaissance to Modern Architecture; ARTH 312: Romanesque & Gothic Architecture; ARTH 412: Gothic Architecture; ARTH 452: Byzantine Art

Select Publications

• “Traces of the Medieval Working Class in the Land of the Paris Cathedral Chapter,” Different Visions: New Perspectives on Medieval Art 10 (2023): 1-43.

• “Eucharistic Dove,” in Making and Meaning: The Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center of Vassar College, ed. Elizabeth Nogrady with Alyx Raz (Munich: Hirmer, 2023), 50-51.

• “The Image of Notre-Dame: Architectural and Artistic Responses to the Cathedral of Paris,” in The Analysis of Gothic Architecture, AVISTA Studies in Medieval Technology, Science and Art, ed. Robert Bork (Leiden: Brill, 2023), 264-287.

• “et caelum recessit sicut liber involutus: Hierarchical and Eschatological Connotations of the Southern Italian Exultet Rolls,” in Les figurations visuelles de la parole, du son musical et du bruit, de l’Antiquité à la Renaissance, ed. Sébastien Biay, Frédéric Billiet, and Isabelle Marchesin (Paris: Publications numériques de l’Institut de recherche en Musicologie), 203-211.

• Translator (from French), Barbara Franzé, “The Façade of Saint-Gilles-du-Gard: The Visual Strategies of a Political Agenda,” Gesta 61, no. 1 (Spring 2022): 1-26.

• “Musical Imagery in the Global Middle Ages,” Smarthistory, September 15, 2020.

• “Technology to Freeze Time at Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc’s Notre-Dame of Paris,” Future Anterior 17, no. 1 (Summer 2020): 46-59.

• Translator (from French), Dany Sandron and Andrew Tallon, Notre Dame Cathedral: Nine Centuries of History (University Park: Penn State University Press, 2020).

• “Religious Freedom and Architectural Ambition at Vassar College, 1945-54,” in Modernism and American Mid-20th Century Sacred Architecture, ed. Anat Geva (New York and London: Routledge, 2019), pp. 31-50.

Select Presentations

• “Notre-Dame of Paris, Material and Immaterial,” Im/materialities: Museums Between Real and Digital, Museo Egizio, Turin, Italy, November 2023.
  

• “Encadrer Notre-Dame: Réponses artistiques à la cathédrale de Paris aux États-Unis,” Cycle de conferences Scientifiques de Notre-Dame, Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA), Paris, France, March 2023.

• “3D Documentation and the Restoration of Notre-Dame,”Conference on Immersive Media, Network for Immersive Media, Swedish National Heritage Board, November 2022.

• “Reimagining Notre-Dame,” Toronto Public Library, May 2022.

• “A Clean Slate: Iconoclasm and the Image of Notre-Dame of Paris,” Architecture and Iconoclasm, Society of Architectural Historians Annual International Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, April 2022

• “A Harlem Middle Ages,” ICMA Sponsored Session, College Art Association Annual Conference, February 2022

• “Notre-Dame of Paris Through Time,” Notre-Dame de Paris Truss Project, School of Architecture and Planning, Catholic University of America, June 2021

• “Notre-Dame of Paris: In the Light of the Fire,” Sheppy Dog Fund Lecture, Flint Institute of Arts, June 2021

• “The Image of Notre-Dame of Paris,” AVISTA Sponsored Session, International Congress on Medieval Studies, May 2021

• “A Lacelike Fortress: Tandy & Foster Design a Permanent Home in Harlem for St. Philip’s Church,” College Art Association Annual Conference, February 2021

• “Notre-Dame of Paris: Past and Present,” ICMA Friends Lecture, presented with Dany Sandron, International Center of Medieval Art, February 2021

• “Rebuilding Notre-Dame,” Howard E. Wooden Lecture, Wichita Art Museum, October 2020

• “The Ethics of Reconstruction: The Case of Notre-Dame,” Liebling Haus—The White City Center, October 2020

• Contributor, International Perspectives on Disaster Response Webinar, Association of Art Museum Curators, April 2020

• “What is (not) Classical about Gothic Architecture?” Fordham University/Institute for Classical Art and Architecture, New York, NY, October 2019

• “Restoring Notre-Dame: A Look at the Digital Scans That Could Help,” The Digital Art History Lab Lectures, The Frick Collection, New York, NY, September 2019

• “Musical Instruments of the Passion,” Maison Française d’Oxford, Oxford, UK, June 2019

• “A Prehistory of the Paris Banlieue,” Marginal Landscapes, Society of Architectural Historians Annual Conference, Providence, RI, April 2019

• “Technology to Freeze Time at Lassus and Viollet-le-Duc’s Notre-Dame of Paris,” Medieval Academy of America Annual Meeting, Atlanta, GA, March 2018

• Chair, Digital Resources Committee, International Center of Medieval Art (ICMA)

• www.lindsayscook.com