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."