Courses Taught by Institute Faculty, 2009–2010
See the bulletins of the School of Music and the Divinity School for full course listings and degree requirements. Courses listed here may be cross-listed in other schools or departments. Information is current as of July 15, 2009.
The letter “a” following the course number denotes the fall term; the letter “b” denotes the spring term.
Music Courses
MUS 509a–b, 609a–b, 709a–b, Art Song Coaching for Singers 1 credit per term. Individual private coaching in the art song repertoire, in preparation for required recitals. Students are coached on such elements of musical style as phrasing, rubato, and articulation, and in English, French, Italian, German, and Spanish diction. Students are expected to bring their recital accompaniments to coaching sessions as their recital times approach. Faculty
MUS 515a,b, 615a,b, 715a,b, 815a,b, Improvisation at the Organ 2 credits. Development of improvisatory skills at the keyboard. Jeffrey Brillhart
MUS 519a–b, 619a–b, 719a–b, 819a–b, Colloquium Participation in seminars led by faculty and guest lecturers on topics concerning theology, music, worship, and related arts. Required of all Institute of Sacred Music students. Martin Jean
MUS 523a, Liturgical Keyboard Skills In this course, students gain a deeper understanding and appreciation for musical genres, both those familiar to them and different from their own, and learn basic techniques for their application in church service playing. Students learn to play hymns, congregational songs, service music, and anthems from a variety of sources, including music from the liturgical and free church traditions, including the Black Church experience. Beginning with the piano, students are encouraged to play by ear, using their aural skills in learning gospel music. This training extends to the organ, in the form of improvised introductions and varied accompaniments to hymns of all types. We seek to accomplish these goals by active participation and discussion in class. When not actually playing in class, students are encouraged to sing to the accompaniment of the person at the keyboard, to further their experience of singing with accompaniment, and to give practical encouragement to the person playing. Walden Moore
MUS 531a–b, 631a–b, 731a–b, Repertory Chorus A reading chorus open by audition and conducted by graduate choral conducting students. The chorus reads, studies, and sings a wide sampling of choral literature. Marguerite L. Brooks
MUS 532a–b, 632a–b, 732a–b, Conducting Repertory Chorus Students in the graduate choral conducting program work with the Repertory Chorus, preparing and conducting a portion of a public concert each term. Open only to choral conducting majors. Marguerite L. Brooks
MUS 535a–b, 635a–b, 735a–b, Recital Chorus A chorus open by audition and conducted by graduate choral conducting students. It serves as the choral ensemble for four to five degree recitals per year. Marguerite L. Brooks
MUS 536a–b, 636a–b, 736a–b, Conducting Recital Chorus Second- and third-year students in the graduate choral conducting program work with the Recital Chorus, preparing and conducting their degree recitals. Open to choral conducting majors only. Marguerite L. Brooks
MUS 537b, Collaborative Piano—Voice A course designed for pianists, focusing on the skills required for vocal accompanying and coaching. The standard song and operatic repertoire is emphasized. The curriculum includes sight-reading, techniques of transposition, figured bass, and effective reduction of operatic materials for the recreation of orchestral sounds at the piano. Ted Taylor
MUS 540a–b, 640a–b, 740a–b, Individual Instruction in the Major 4 credits per term. Individual instruction of one hour per week throughout the academic year, for majors in performance, conducting, and composition. Faculty
MUS 544a–b, 644a–b, 744a–b, Seminar in the Departmental Major 2 credits per term. An examination of a wide range of problems relating to the area of the major. Specific requirements may differ by department. Required of all School of Music students except pianists who take 533, 633, 733. Faculty
MUS 546a–b, 646a–b, 746a–b, Yale Camerata Open to all members of the University community by audition, the Yale Camerata presents several performances throughout the year that explore choral literature from all musical periods. Members of the ensemble should have previous choral experience and be willing to devote time to the preparation of music commensurate with the Camerata’s vigorous rehearsal and concert schedule.Marguerite L. Brooks
MUS 567a/REL 785a, Chant and Liturgy in the Latin Middle Ages: An Introduction to the Sources This interdisciplinary course is designed for scholars, performers, and liturgists. The focus is on manuscripts from the long twelfth century and from centers of major musical, liturgical, and exegetical importance: the Abbey of St. Victor in Paris; the use of Hirsau around Mainz; the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem; and liturgical change in the region around Winchester from the early eleventh through the late twelfth century. Students should have graduate- or professional-level expertise in one of the following: music, liturgics, Latin, manuscript study, medieval history, biblical study, theology, or art history. Margot Fassler
MUS 571a–b, 671a–b, 771a–b, Yale Schola Cantorum Specialist chamber choir for the development of advanced ensemble skills and expertise in demanding solo roles (in music from before 1750 and from the last 100 years). Enrollment limited to, and required of, voice majors in the early music, song, and chamber ensemble program. Masaaki Suzuki
MUS 594a, Vocal Chamber Music 1 credit. This performance-based class requires a high level of individual participation each week. Grades are based on participation in and preparation for class, and two performances of the repertoire learned. Attendance is mandatory. The term is devoted to music of Bach and his contemporaries, culminating with a concert for an international conference on “Bach and Women,” to take place at Yale, October 17, 2009. A second project, November 13, 2009, focuses on the art song repertoire of various composers from Munich, Leipzig, Weimar, and Berlin. Occasional weekend sessions and extra rehearsals during the production week can be expected. Students are expected to learn quickly and must be prepared to tackle a sizeable amount of repertoire. James Taylor
MUS 595a, 695a, Performance Practice for Singers: Introduction An exploration of the major issues of historically informed performance, such as the search for “authenticity” and the roles of the editor and the performer. Specific topics addressed include performance context, application of sources, original notation and modern editions, national styles, aesthetics, and ornamentation. Students examine historical sources and read selections from seventeenth- and eighteenth-century treatises. Open to conductors and instrumentalists with permission of instructor. Judith Malafronte
MUS 595b, 695b, Performance Practice for Singers: Then and Now—The Performance of Handel’s Oratorios An examination of Handel’s oratorios in their social and musical context, noting the influence of Handel’s singers and audience on his compositions. The class addresses issues of Baroque vocal performance including tempo, ornamentation, recitative, and dramatic interpretation, with a high level of student participation and making limited use of recordings. We study the librettos as social, political, and religious statements, looking in depth at La Resurrezione, Saul, and Solomon. Open to conductors and instrumentalists with permission of instructor. Judith Malafronte
MUS 601a, The Chorale Cantatas of J.S. Bach One of the most important musical materials in the works of Johann Sebastian Bach is the Protestant hymn, the chorale. During his second year in Leipzig, Bach composed a whole cycle of chorale cantatas. The course examines the musical, liturgical, and theological traditions that formed the basis for these cantatas, and it shows how Bach managed the compositional problems he faced. Since the usage of a chorale limited the formal possibilities of the composer, Bach had to find solutions for structural and contrapuntal problems. In the Choralkantatenjahrgang, Bach shows how a choral motet can be combined with a French overture and a recitative with a hymn setting. Some of his compositional solutions were predetermined by tradition; others were absolutely new. But not only in these technical aspects are the chorale cantatas of interest. Since Bach was faced in most of the cantatas with similar problems, they are an essential document for Bach’s own artistic development. Markus Rathey
MUS 603b, The Sacred Concerto in the Seventeenth Century When Ludovico da Viadana published his Cento concerti Ecclesiastici in 1602, a “new” musical style was born: the small-scaled sacred concerto. The course outlines the development of this style in the seventeenth century among composers like Monteverdi and Schütz, as well as its roots in the late sixteenth century in the compositions of Willaert and G. Gabrieli. Markus Rathey
MUS 617a/REL 760a, Music and Theology in the Sixteenth Century: Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and the Council of Trent The Protestant Reformation in the sixteenth century was a “media event.” The invention of letterpress printing, the partisanship of famous artists like Dürer and Cranach, and, not least, the support of musicians and composers were responsible for spreading the thoughts of Reformation. But while Luther gave an important place to music, Zwingli and Calvin were much more skeptical. Music—especially sacred music—was not only a chance for Reformation, it was also a problem, because it was tightly connected with Catholic liturgical and aesthetic traditions. Reformation had to think about the place music could have in worship and about the function of music in secular life. But first of all, a theological authorization had to be found, because the authorization of music by any kind of tradition was no longer possible. The course shows how music was viewed by the reformers and which theological decisions formed the basis for their view. But we also consider the effect of these theological matters on musical practice: on liturgical singing and on composers and their compositions. Markus Rathey
Divinity Courses
REL 760a/MUS 617a, Music and Theology in the Sixteenth Century: Luther, Zwingli, Calvin, and the Council of Trent See description under Music Courses.
REL 780b, The Churches of the East This course introduces students to the various greater and lesser churches of Eastern Christianity. It looks particularly at the Christological divisions that separated Eastern Orthodox from Syrian and Coptic Orthodox, Church of the East and Maronite, including the Christology of Cyril of Alexandria and Nestorius, the Chalcedonian Definition, the Christological writings of Severus of Antioch, the monothelitic controversy, and the creedal documents of the Church of the East. It also looks at the recent Agreed Statements on Christology signed between the Roman Catholic Church and the Syrian and Coptic Orthodox Churches under the auspices of Pro Oriente, Vienna, and the relevant statements in the current dialogue between the various Syrian Churches. It considers the worship of these churches in relation to the eucharist, noting the history, family likenesses, development and theology, and any influence of Christological teaching. Bryan D. Spinks
REL 782a, Foundations of Christian Worship This course focuses on theological and historical approaches to the study of Christian worship, while also giving appropriate attention to pastoral, cultural, and contemporary issues. The first part of the course seeks to familiarize students with the basic elements of communal, public prayer in the Christian tradition (such as its roots in Hebrew scripture, its Trinitarian basis and direction, its ways of figuring time and space, its use of language, scripture, music, the arts, etc.). The second part of the course provides an outline of historical developments, from the biblical roots to the present. In addition, select class sessions focus on important questions such as the relationship between gendered lives and liturgical celebration, and between liturgy and ethical commitments, for example justice and earth care. As the gateway course to the Program in Liturgical Studies, Foundations of Christian Worship should be taken prior to other liturgy courses offered at Yale. The course is especially recommended for all students preparing for ordination and/or other responsibilities in worship leadership. It is an essential course for all students interested in graduate work in liturgical studies. Teresa Berger
REL 785a/MUS 567a, Chant and Liturgy in the Latin Middle Ages: An Introduction to the Sources See description under Music Courses.
REL 786b, Liturgy and Gender (Queer Worship) A multi-faith, multi-racial, and multi-theological seminar examining the ways in which liturgy and gender intersect, using contemporary resources. The aim of this course is to offer students the opportunity to reflect critically on how feminist, womanist, and queer theories and theologies are impacting how Christian worship is both performed and reflected upon. Students leave the course with analytical and practical tools for reading and crafting worship materials in their own contexts that take account of gender as a category of analysis and praxis. Siobhán Garrigan
REL 788a, Worship and War How does war shape worship, and how does worship shape war? How do the things we do in and say about worship affect or inform or influence the things that we do in wars, and vice versa? This course explores the following questions: How should we who craft or lead worship respond to war? What prayers do we say? What songs do we sing? What symbolic actions do we use, borrow, or design? What are the roles of sermons, art, dance, and religious performance in a time or place of war? And what do the arts of war say to or about our worship of God? The course is conducted as a seminar, requiring substantial reading and video-viewing as well as group discussion. It requires field study of worship services at a congregation of a tradition different from your own (for which you will be given training) and considerable learning about the city neighborhood in which the church is located. Trips to the New Haven Public Library and other civic institutions in the city may be required to support this learning. Siobhán Garrigan
REL 789a, Gender and Liturgical History Does gender shape liturgy? Is gender inscribed into the liturgical tradition? How did gendered identities mark worship practices in seating arrangements, in participation in or exclusion from certain rituals, or in visual representations in sacred space? And does gender still matter in the formation of liturgical practices in the twenty-first century? These are just some of the questions this course proposes for intellectual inqury. Fundamentally, the category “gender” is understood to attend to all gendered identities and sexualities. Gender, in other words, goes beyond binary femininity and masculinity and includes all gendered particularities (e.g., eunuchs in Byzantium or intersexed people in America, as well as men and women). Gender thus is an unstable and context-specific category, relational with “the other (gender),” but relational also with wider cultural materials and with markers of difference such as status, ethnicity, and age. What relationship is there between gender, thus understood, and the liturgical tradition? Briefly, no liturgy ever was celebrated in a vacuum of cultural referents, and gender constructions were one such fundamental cultural referent. They continue to be a cultural referent, even (or especially?) at a moment in time when traditional gender constructions are breaking down. One could thus say that gender has always been and continues to be a fundamental marker of all liturgical life. This course investigates how the liturgical tradition was profoundly shaped by, and itself shaped and continues to shape, gendered lives and symbolic meanings associated with gendered identities. Teresa Berger
REL 796b, Christian Marriage: Biblical Themes, Theological Reflections, and Liturgical Celebrations This course is an exploration of the celebration of marriage, combining some biblical exegesis and theological reflection with close examination of the evolution of the liturgical rites. It looks at some foundation biblical passages, and it considers the Jewish religious matrix and the Roman and Germanic legal setting of early Christian marriage. Examination is made of the theology of marriage in selected writings and sermons, ancient and modern, and study of the structure and theology of the marriage rites in the Eastern Orthodox, East Syrian, and Maronite churches. The history of the Western marriage rites is traced from the early sacramentaries through to the 1614 Ritual, as well as the theological background and rites of the major Reformation traditions, together with some customs of a more social nature. Modern marriage rites in American churches are compared. Selected recent books on Christian marriage are read. Bryan D. Spinks
REL 839b, Psalms in Literature and Music A study of selected psalms (e.g., 23, 130, 150) as literary and theological works that have had a long history in Jewish and Christian worship. From this beginning, students look at these scriptural texts as inspiration for a wide variety of literary and musical compositions and explore the relationship between scripture and art, in this case music and literature. What happens to the biblical text over time and as interpreted in different media? Peter Hawkins, Markus Rathey
REL 842a, Creative and Dramatic Writing In Christ Is the Question Wayne Meeks writes, regarding the advent of Christianity: “It is, of course, difficult for academic historians to believe that poetry can make history—but that, I submit, is what happened.” This course aks two questions: Are there signs of this poetry in current dramatic writing and fiction? And where do we find this poetry in our own writing? Students read dramatic work by Anton Chekhov, Harold Pinter, Horton Foote, August Wilson, and Lynn Nottage, and short fiction by Alice Munro and Jhumpa Lahiri, as well as look at the films Paradise Now (Palestine), Walk On Water (Israel), and The Band’s Visit (Israel). Concurrent with this, the students work on their own dramatic scenes, monologues, plays, or stories. As the term proceeds, students present and discuss this writing. The weekly two-hour meeting is supplemented with office-hour appointments with each individual student. Throughout the term a fundamental rule to any rigorous creative or scientific endeavor is emphasized: “show, don’t tell.” One may argue that some contemporary artists do in fact promulgate, or “preach,” their ideas, and that this is accepted in our current cultural climate because what is being depicted, in terms of demeaning human aspiration or violent behavior, is considered cutting edge or topical. But as Christian thinkers or artists we cannot expect to get away with “telling” our story. We must be rigorous and honest in working out the specifics of a creative work, and allow the theme and structure to emerge naturally out of these. What we write can be healing, life-affirmative, and fundamentally Christian without any need necessarily to “steer” it in such a direction. Russell Davis
REL 844a, Reimagining the Hours of the Virgin This course draws its inspiration from the devotional series of prayers known as the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or more commonly called the Hours of the Virgin. A Book of Hours is a prayer book intended to be used not by priests or nuns, but by ordinary people, the lay men and women of the Middle Ages. From the late thirteenth to the early sixteenth century, the Book of Hours was the medieval best-seller, number one for nearly 250 years. Each hour consists of antiphons, psalms, hymns, prayers, verses, and responses and is joined by a painted scene or illumination. Books of Hours contain at heart a series of short offices, the Hours of the Virgin, which were meant to be recited at seven canonical times (or hours) of the day. The standard cycle, with common variations, is as follows: Matins (Annunciation), Lauds (Visitation), Prime (Nativity), Terce (Annunciation to the Shepherds), Sext (Adoration of the Magi), None (Presentation in the Temple), Vespers (Flight into Egypt), Compline (Coronation of the Virgin). Following this “Infancy Cycle” there are two more prayers centered on the Virgin and also linked to images: Obsecro Te (Virgin and Child) and O Intemerata (Lamentation or Pieta). Within the pages of these handpainted treasures, culture and civilization flourished. They constitute some of the most glorious masterpieces of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The course seeks to reimagine those scenes in starkly contemporary terms and, in so doing, envision a theologically sound, ecumenically fruitful, spiritually empowering, and socially liberating interpretation of Mary for the twenty-first century. It concludes with a related performance project that the instructor is developing. David Michalek
REL 851b, Religious Themes in Contemporary Fiction: Short Story Readings in contemporary American short fiction with a particular interest in scriptural resonance and religious (Jewish as well as Christian) significance. Authors to be considered: Flannery O’Connor, John Updike, Allegra Goodman, Tobias Wolff, Andre Dubus, John Clayton, Mary Gordon. Peter Hawkins
REL 857a, Religious Lyric in Britain A survey of the religious lyric in Britain from the Anglo-Saxon Caedmon to the contemporary poet Michael Symmons Roberts. The course features close readings of individual poems, acquaintance with a range of poets, and assessment of the permutations of Christian religious sensibility within a national literary tradition. Peter Hawkins
REL 910a–b, ISM Colloquium Martin D. Jean
REL 911a–b, Marquand Chapel Choir Patrick Evans
REL 912a, Principles and Practice of Preaching This is the introductory course in the theology, history, and practice of preaching, and is the prerequisite for all advanced courses in homiletics. Special attention is given to biblical exposition, the congregational context, the appropriate use of experience, the development of a homiletical imagination, and engaging all the preacher’s gifts for communication. The course includes lecture presentations and small group practica for which students prepare and deliver sermons. Students must sign up for one of the practica when they sign up for this course. Thomas Troeger, Nora Tisdale
REL 913a–b, Marquand Gospel Choir Mark Miller
REL 928a–b, Musical Skills and Vocal Development for Parish Ministry The course is designed to equip students preparing for ministry with the vocal and musical skills necessary for planning and leading Christian worship in a wide variety of liturgical traditions. We engage practical matters in congregational song, ways in which singing forms community, and strategies for helping the members of the assembly claim their own voices in a culture that privileges performance-quality individualism over the communal musicianship of the assembly. We learn a diversity of musical and liturgical styles, including chant, psalm-singing, Sacred Harp, African American and global song traditions in which the role of the enlivener is essential. The course requires field work in local congregations and uses the daily ecumenical worship in Marquand Chapel as a point of discussion. Patrick Evans
REL 963a, Congregational Song as a Resource for Preaching and Worship This course begins with an examination of the primary historical periods of hymn writing in the Western church that are represented in mainstream hymnals, then moves on to consider contemporary and global congregational song. Students design a service and create and deliver a sermon based on these perspectives. They then learn how to write a hymn text or a hymn setting. Students are required to write hymns in light of the theological and social needs of our time. In teams they collaborate to design and lead us in services that feature their hymn texts with settings (where possible) that music students have composed. Thomas Troeger, Patrick Evans
REL 967b, Theologies of Preaching In recent decades, homileticians have increasingly turned from a focus on methods of preaching to a concern for the purposes of preaching. Why and what do we preach? How do we theologically understand the act of preaching? How is preaching something in which the gathered congregation participates? What is the interrelationship of the gospel and culture in preaching? How are our answers to these perennial questions shifting in a postmodern ethos? The course considers a number of recent works that provide a wide range of answers to these questions. Students write a brief initial essay on what they believe to be their theology of preaching. Drawing upon the theological/homiletical principles that they encounter in their reading, students write brief essays, create and deliver sermons, and then critically analyze the theological character of their proclamation, seeing if it is congruent with their articulated theology of preaching. At the end of the course, they write a final essay about what they discovered from a close examination of the text books, and from comparing the implicit theology of their sermons with the theology that they claimed at the beginning of the course. Where are they congruent, where are they different, what are the implications for their preaching in the future? Thomas Troeger
REL 969b, The Round Table Pulpit: Developing Services through Group Bible Study Thomas Troeger, Nora Tisdale
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
AMST 823b, Visual Controversies: Religion and the Politics of Vision This interdisciplinary seminar explores the destruction, censorship, and suppression of pictures and objects, as these acts have been motivated by religious convictions and practices, in the United States from colonization to the present. In such episodes, religion does not operate in a vacuum but draws attention to various other cultural pressure points concerning, for example, race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality. The course treats iconoclasm as a fundamental constituent in the American myth of national origins. The seductive idea of beginning anew, smashing idols of the past, and drawing/writing American cultural and religious history on a blank slate, on the great vacuity of a wilderness continent, shapes early understandings of American destiny and continues to motivate American imagination. As early as the seventeenth century, and up to the present day, individuals and groups in the geographic area that is now the United States have practiced a range of behaviors we might meaningfully, though often figuratively, label iconoclastic. The course focuses most specifically on variations of Protestant Christianity, but also directs attention to case studies within American Judaism, Islam, and Catholicism and looks to comparative situations elsewhere in the world. Topics to be considered include: Puritan use of a theology of figuration to justify genocide as an “iconoclastic” act in the Pequot War; Shaker constructions of visionary pictures as forms of “writing” rather than “art”; sculptor Rose Kohler’s determination to define and regulate “Jewish art” in her work with the National Council of Jewish Women; recent adjudication of the public display of the Ten Commandments or Christian nativity scenes in the context of religious pluralism and the First Amendment; international culture wars and the specific uses of “blasphemy” charges to restrict images and the visual practices of religions (by Rudolph Giuliani and Jesse Helms, for example, as well as the controversy over Danish cartoons representing Muhammad); and the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas in 2001. By permission of instructor. Sally M. Promey
