Andrea Snow | SIU

Art History

Andrea C. Snow is an art historian specializing in the material and visual cultures of medieval Scandinavia and German-speaking lands. She is especially interested in objects that represent, refer to, or signal the presence of a supernatural Other. Examining how such enigmatic things provoked emotional and spiritual responses within beholders, as well as the magnification of said responses through sensory engagement, her research centers the affective and somatic impressions of the material world as they intersect with religiosity.

Dr. Snow has presented on this topic nationally and internationally, and her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as Comitatus: A Journal of Medieval and Renaissance Studies (2020) and Magic, Ritual, and Witchcraft (2021). She has also contributed book reviews to Boston College’s interdisciplinary journal, Religion and the Arts, and served as a manuscript reviewer for assorted scholarly publications. Her book project, Mutable Corpora: Representing the Body in Medieval Scandinavian Art, 750–1200 CE explores changes in visual manifestations of corporeality—from images of shape-shifters, to the embodiment of cosmic specters, to the embrace of naturalism and individual likeness in sculpture and painting—that played out from the Viking Age to the region’s conversion to Christianity.

Devoted to the education and welfare of students, Dr. Snow has coordinated multiple public outreach events, written public scholarship for Smarthistory, developed courses for public and private education initiatives across the country, and received esteemed recognition for her teaching. But above all else, she hopes to create an inclusive intellectual climate through interdisciplinary scholarship, engaged pedagogy, and an impartible affinity for all that is visual.