Steven Stowell, PhD

Steven Stowell is an historian of late medieval and Early Modern Italian art, whose research focuses on the devotional experiences and ritual uses of sacred images, the intersections between art and language, and the relationships between art and cultural discourses on gender and sexuality. He received his doctorate from Oxford University in 2009, and holds a BFA and an MA from Queen's University, Kingston. Prior to joining the faculty of Concordia University, Dr. Stowell held a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Art at the University of Toronto, where he also taught in the Renaissance Studies Program at Victoria College.

In his book, The Spiritual Language of Art: Medieval Christian Themes in Writings on Art of the Italian Renaissance, Dr. Stowell investigates the relationships between art, literature, and devotional responses to images. He has also published research in numerous edited volumes, as well as the journals Word & Image, Dante Studies and Renaissance and Reformation. His current research projects explore anthropological approaches to Renaissance art by looking at how art objects were implicated in the discourses surrounding fertility and growth, chastity and abundance, and healing and nourishment.

Dr. Stowell maintains both a creative writing and an artistic practice. As a painter he has an interest in figurative representation and has exhibited in Canada and the UK. As a fiction writer, he has published short stories in The Windsor Review and Carte Blanche. 

Research & Teaching Interests

• Art and Visual Culture in Renaissance Italy
  
• Early Modern European Art (Late Middle Ages to Baroque)
  
• Sacred Art
• Early Modern Art Theory
  
• Anthropology and Art History
  
• Histories of Sex and Gender

Distinctions & Awards

2015-2017

• SSHRC: Insight Development Grant. "Art, Prayer and Miraculous Growth in Early Renaissance Florence." 

2013-2016