Mickey S. Abel, associate professor of art history, spent four years in France and Spain researching
the distinctive entryways of churches from the 11th and 12th century for her book,
Open Access: Contextualizing the Archivolted Portals of Northern Spain and Western
France Within the Theology and Politics of Entry (Cambridge Scholars Publishing).
"The monuments investigated in this book had been significantly overlooked by architectural
historians," Abel says. "My inspiration came from the pleasure of bringing new light
to the intellectual concepts embedded in these buildings."