History of Art and Architecture

Professor Muller’s research integrates history and art history to tackle major issues that changed art during the early modern period. 

His recent book, St. Jacob’s Antwerp:  Art and Counter Reformation in Rubens’s Parish Church, studied, in depth from archives and objects, how the history of art in one church participated in the larger religious, social, and political change effected by the Catholic Church in Belgium. 

His new project on the Jesuit Global Strategy of Accommodation traces how the Society of Jesus crafted its image and message to fit with the customs and cultures of the diverse peoples with which it engaged, from Japan and China to Peru and Bolivia. 

A senior fellowship at Boston College’s Institute for Advanced Jesuit Studies helped Professor Muller start this work. His teaching aims to instruct undergraduates in the core history of early modern art from Giotto to Watteau, to offer them greater depth in lecture courses on Flemish and Dutch art, and in seminars about a variety of topics.  In graduate seminars, he teaches both topics current to my research and current to the changing interests of graduate students.  His teaching includes a collaborative course with his colleague Harold Cook from the history department an undergraduate lecture about the global history of the Netherlands in the early modern period.