Since graduating Fordham University’s program in Medieval Studies in 2012, Scott Miller has been pursuing a PhD in art history at Northwestern University. His research specializes in the courtly arts and culture of Valois France and Burgundy, particularly the architecture and landscapes of great royal houses. Over the past three years, he has presented on these topics in the June 2014 “Buildings and the Body” conference in Southampton, England and at the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo, Michigan in May 2015. His dissertation project approaches four major Valois châteaux: the Louvre, Vincennes, Hesdin, and Germolles, and seeks to uncover how moments of social performance and interven
tion into domestic architecture transformed buildings, gardens, and landscape into crucibles of elite identity and political power formation.
In spring 2015, Scott presented his first publication, Take this Ring: Medieval and Renaissance Rings from the Griffin Collection. Co-authored with Sandra Hindman, professor emerita in Art History at Northwestern University and owner of Les Enluminures, this book accompanies the exhibition Treasures and Talismans: Rings from the Griffin Collection at the Cloisters Collection. “In this volume,” Scott states, “we chose not to cut close to the tradition catalog format. Rather, we treated the rings in this distinguished private collection thematically. Seeking to tell the story of the “life cycle” of the ring, we presented a history that followed them from the mines to the archaeological context, and through a human world in which they acted as symbols, talismans, and even social agents.”