• B.A., Art History, Swarthmore College
• M.A., Art History, Tulane University
• Ph.D., History of Art and Architecture, University of California at Santa Barbara

Professor Buchanan teaches a variety of doctoral courses in western art and architectural history from Greco-Roman Antiquity to the nineteenth century. He has also designed the following interdisciplinary graduate seminars: "Transformations: Arts and Culture in Late Antiquity," "The Arts and the Word in the Early Middle Ages" and "The Renaissance Spectacle." A specialist in Romanesque manuscript illumination, Professor Buchanan's primary research interests lie in Italian visual culture and iconology.

His publications include: “Methods and Modes of Romanesque Manuscript Illumination at the Scriptorium of S. Frediano in Lucca,” Manuscripta vol. 49 no. 1 (2005), "Spiritual and Spatial Authority in Medieval Lucca: Illuminated Manuscripts, Stational Liturgy and the Gregorian Reform," Art History vol. 27, no. 5 (November, 2004); "Evidence of a Scriptorium at the Reformed Canonry of S. Frediano in Lucca," Scriptorium: Revue internationale des études relatives aux manuscrits vol. 57, no. 1 (2003); and "Late Eleventh-Century Illuminated Initials from Lucca: Partisan Political Imagery During the Investiture Struggle," Arte medievale, 2d Series, vols. 12/13 (1998-99). Professor Buchanan is also co-editor, co-writer, and co-compiler of the Encyclopedia of New Orleans Artists: 1718-1918 (New Orleans: The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1987). He is presently working on a book entitled "The Illustrated Manuscript as Partisan Implement during the Gregorian Reform."

In recent years he has presented papers at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference; College Art Association; Index of Christian Art, Department of Art and Archeology. Princeton University; International Congress on Medieval Studies; Medieval Association of the Pacific; New College Conference on Medieval/Renaissance Studies; Rocky Mountain Medieval and Renaissance Association; and Vatican Film Library Conference on Manuscript Studies, St. Louis University.

A former Fulbright scholar, in 2001 and 2002 Professor Buchanan received Ohio University 1804 Special Library Endowment Awards for the purchase of facsimiles of the Book of Kells and Beatus of Saint-Sever, which are now housed in Alden Library.