A. L. McClanan

Anne McClanan, an Art History Professor at Portland State University (Oregon), wrote Griffinology inspired by the curiosity of students in her Medieval Monsters and other courses. Her research on this subject led her on adventures with griffins from Istanbul to Idaho.

Her prior books include Representations of Early Byzantine Empresses, Guide to Byzantine Art (a free Smarthistory textbook), and co-edited books about Iconoclasm and the early material culture of marriage and procreation. She studied at Harvard, Johns Hopkins, and Columbia Universities, and worked as Harvard's Keeper of Coins as well as at archaeological excavations in Jordan, Israel, and Turkey.