Athanor features student papers from the annual Art History Graduate Symposium hosted by the Department of Art History at Florida State University. Inaugurated in 1981, the Art History Graduate Symposium brings together students, professors, and members of the community to share ideas and expertise in a wide variety of art history and humanities topics. Athanor exists as a critical forum for the exchange of ideas and for contrast and comparison of theories and research and is disseminated for non-profit, educational purposes; annotated allusions, quotations, and visual materials are employed solely to that end.

History of Athanor
In 1980 Professor François Bucher (University of Bern, Medieval Art) asked Allys Palladino-Craig (formerly of the variorum editions of The Collected Works of Stephen Crane, 10 vols., Fredson Bowers, Editor, University of Virginia Press) to take on the responsibility of general editor and publisher of the first volume of Athanor (1981). Professor Bucher served as faculty advisor until his retirement. During that time, Palladino-Craig won several grants for the publication, and in 1994 established the Museum Press of the Florida State University Museum of Fine Arts with Julienne T. Mason as principal editorial assistant and graphic designer. Beginning in 2018, Jean D. Young became the designer for Athanor XXXVI, and Carey E. Fee joined the editorial team. From 1998-2002, Patricia Rose served as faculty advisor to this annual journal, which is a project of the Museum Press. For volumes 26 - 27, Richard K. Emmerson, the Editor of Speculum from 1999 to 2006, served as co-editor. Allys Palladino-Craig, Director of the Museum of Fine Arts at Florida State University, served as grantwriter for volumes to 36 of the publication. With the 37th volume, Athanor transformed to an online open access journal, published by Florida Virtual Campus (FLVC), the Florida Academic Library Services Cooperative (FALSC), and The Florida State University Libraries. The 37th volume was edited by Dr. Preston McLane of the FSU Museum of Fine Arts and Dr. Kyle Killian, Assistant Professor in the Art History Department.  

In 2020, responsibility for both the Art History Graduate Symposium and Athanor was given to the graduate students of the Department of Art History. The first graduate-led Symposium was hosted in March 2021, with Britt Hunter serving as symposiarch. Caitlin Mims served as the first graduate Editor-in-Chief for volume 38 of Athanor. 

Open Access 

Athanor provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. There are no article processing charges, submissions fees, or any other costs required of authors to submit articles to this journal.

Review Policy

Submissions to the Art History Graduate Symposium are reviewed by graduate students in the Department of Art History at Florida State University. Completed papers undergo editorial review prior to publication.

Plagiarism Policy

Athanor will not publish manuscripts where plagiarism or text recycling has been identified. All manuscripts are checked for plagiarism using the Crossref Similarity Check / iThenticate service. Common examples of plagiarism include but are not limited to verbatim copy, improper or failure of attribution, and text replication. For further guidance on types of plagiarism and how to avoid them, authors should consult the interactive chart provided by iThenticate.