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Divinity Courses 2012-2013
(as of July 2012)
Courses fulfilling the distribution requirements for Institute students pursuing the M.Div. are indicated with a letter indicating the relevant subject area: W (Worship), M (Music), and/or A (Religion and the Arts – visual arts or literature).
The letter “a” following the course number denotes the fall term; the letter “b” denotes the spring term.
REL 673b, Cuthbert, Bede, and Their Theological, Musical, and Liturgical Legacy: The Christian Wtiness of Durham Cathedral and York Minster (W, M)
This intensive team-taught interdisciplinary study course includes a visit to Durham and York to learn about and experience not only the past treasures of these two centers of Christian witness but also the present worship, music, and life of the Cathedral and Minster. The course introduces
students to the history of Christianity in the northeast of England and particularly in the place of Durham Cathedral from the time of Cuthbert to the present work of the Cathedral Chapter, including the hymns composed by YDS graduate Canon RosalindBrown. (W, M)
Robin Leaver and Bryan D. Spinks
REL 682a, Foundations of Christian Worship
(Core Course in Liturgical Studies)
The 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 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 such as earthcare. This gateway course to the Program in Liturgical Studies 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 also an essential course for all students interested in graduate work in liturgical studies. (W)
Teresa Berger, Maggi Dawn
REL 695a, Daily Prayer This seminar proposes for scholarly inquiry the rhythms, texts, materials, and practices of daily prayer that have developed in the Christian tradition. The course is organized around three foci: first, we attend to questions of historical development (aided by a look at some of the key studies that have appeared on the subject in recent
years). Second, we analyze basic theological convictions and material sources that have shaped practices of daily prayer. Third, we turn our attention to the contemporary context (and also take note of forms of daily prayer and devotion in Christian communities that do not have authoritative fixed patterns). Our own times witness intriguing disjunctions when it comes to daily prayer, and this seminar addresses questions of how cultural
context and especially contemporary material culture shape the practice of daily prayer and devotion. (W)
Teresa Berger
REL 801a–b, Marquand Choir (1 credit per term) Colin Britt
REL 802a–b, Marquand Gospel Choir (1/2 credit per term) Mark Miller
REL 843a, Proseminar: Theology and Practice of Sacred Music
In this one credit professional seminar, ministers- and musicians-in-training consider models for shared ministry involving musicians and pastors. Using theological and musical principles outlined in class, students gain the skill and understanding needed for a sound liturgical ministry. The course is specifically designed for both musicians and theology students, helping them learn how to work together in ways that are professionally respectful and mutually enriching.
Martin D. Jean, Thomas H. Troeger
REL 873b, 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. 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. (W)
Thomas H. Troeger
REL 900a, Congregational Music as a Social Setting
What impact does Traditional hymn singing have on congregants’ and musicians’ social relationships? Do these dynamics differ from those within Contemporary praise choruses? Why does music so often become the figurehead for strife within congregations? Within churches and other faith communities, music moves beyond written notes and sounds to facilitate powerful interactions between individuals, institutions, and the divine. Understanding church music as a combination of sound, social relationships, and sacred action facilitates leaders’ helping congregations to articulate their identities and move towards their potentials. (M)
Deborah Justice
REL 904a, Sacred Architecture and the Contemporary City
This seminar is an historical examination and comparative analysis of contemporary sacred architecture and its relationship to urban contexts in the period since the Second World War. It will engage students in exploring such questions as: How is the sacred given expression in material form in a complex urban society? How does the religious building represent the challenges of faith, cultural heritage, and civic space in a contemporary pluralistic world? Each week, a particular case study will focus on a set of issues related to these questions, with readings and class projects. The studies will be drawn from a wide range of cultural contexts, including the United States, the Middle East, Japan, Europe, and Latin America. (A)
Karla Britton
REL 911b, MUS 675b, Music, Ritual, and Religion in Haiti and its Diaspora
This course examines Haiti’s sonic and spiritual landscapes, paying particular attention to the intersections of musical practice, religious experience, and various forms of spiritual and political power. A recurring theme is the role of music in shaping ritual, negotiating cultural identities,
and sustaining transnational linkages between Haiti and the United States. Highlighting the migration of sound and ritual practice to and from the Caribbean region, we carefully consider the extent to which music, ritual, and religious practice in Haiti constitute forms of resistance in the face of sociopolitical and natural hardships. (M)
Melvin K. Butler
REL 912b, MUS 669b, Music in American Religion
This course introduces students to the role of music in a variety of American religious traditions and explores generally the links
between spiritual experience and musical expression. Students leave the course with an enhanced understanding of American religious history, the varieties of religious experience, and the development of American vernacular music. The course is also designed to strengthen students’ skills in critical listening and introduce them to a variety of methods for analyzing the interplay between religious belief and musical practice. (M)
David W. Stowe
REL 928b, Sacred Places, Modern Spaces: Architecture, Identity, and Faith in Britain, 1851 – 1951
This course concentrates on a 100-year period in British history in order to
pose and debate broad, challenging questions regarding the built environment, modernity,society, and faith. This course will be especially relevant to those whose research interests intersect with art history, architectural history, architectural design, hermeneutics, religious studies, theologies of sacred space, historiography, material and visual cultures, and histories of modern Europe. Its emphasis on style, aesthetics, embodiment, and sensory perception may o≠er broader appeal beyond its specific period and geographical span, and its method may enable refreshing cross-disciplinary dialogue. (A)
Ayla Lepine
REL 942a, The Cult of Saints in Early Christianity and the Middle Ages
For all its reputed (and professed) disdain of the corporeal and earthly, Christianity lavished considerable attention and wealth on the material dimension of sainthood and the “holy” during its formative periods in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages. Already in the second century, Christian communities accorded special status to a select few “friends of God,”
primarily martyrs put to death during Roman persecutions. Subsequently the public and private veneration of saints and their earthly remains proliferated, intensified, and became an intrinsic aspect of Christian spirituality and life in both East and West until the Reformation. In doing so, it gradually developed a theology to accommodate everything from fingers of saints to controversial and miracle-working images. This course investigates the theology, origins, and development of the cult of saints in early Christianity and the Middle Ages with special attention to its material manifestations. We combine the examination of thematic issues, such as pilgrimage and the use and function of reliquaries (both portable and architectural), with a focus on such specific cases as the evolution of the cult of the Virgin Mary. (A)
Vasileios Marinis
REL 945a, From House Churches to Medieval Cathedrals: Christian Art and Architecture from the Third Century to the End of Gothic
This course examines the art associated with or related to Christianity from its origins to the end of Gothic. It analyzes major artistic monuments and movements in a variety of regions, paying particular attention to how art shapes, and is shaped by, the social and historical circumstances of the period and culture. The class considers art in diverse media, focusing on painting, sculpture, architecture, and decorative arts. It includes trips to the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library at Yale and to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. (A)
Vasileios Marinis
REL 947b, Visual Fluencies: Material Arts and Western Visual Cultures of Religion, 1300 – 2006
This course examines the art, artifacts, and architecture of Western Europe and the United States from the early Renaissance to the present. The course offers an introductory survey of a selection of major artistic monuments, and their visual cultural variations, and invites students to understand and interpret these monuments in relation to religious practice and thought in historical and visual contexts. (A)
Sally M. Promey
REL 950a and b, Dante’s Journey to God (Full-year course; two semesters)
This course on the Divine Comedy is a reading of the entire text in light of what it purports to be—a journey toward the vision of God. Such an approach does not mean dissolving the narrative in allegory or ignoring literary considerations in favor of theology: it means taking full account of the poem as a path with a divine destination, as a theological poem. Special interest is paid to how Dante transforms his pagan as well as Christian sources, how deeply he assimilates the Bible and its interpretative traditions, and how boldly he attempts to establish his own text as a sacred poem. (A)
Peter S. Hawkins
REL 961b, Psalms in Literature and Music
This course is a study of the richness and power of the Psalter through an examination of a few key Psalms (e.g., 23, 51, 130, and 150) as literary and theological works that have had a long history in Jewish and Christian
worship. We look at these scriptural texts as inspiration for a wide variety of poetic and musical compositions and artistic flowering. Students explore the relationship between scripture and art, especially in music and literature. What happens to the biblical text over time and as it is interpreted in different media? Musical works include settings by Johann Sebastian Bach, Leonard Bernstein, and Orlando di Lasso, and poetry includes works by Philip and Mary Sidney, Christopher Smart, Gerard Manley Hopkins, John Berryman & Anne Sexton, Jacqueline Osherow, Brooks Haxton, and Brad Davis. (M, A)
Markus Rathey and Peter S. Hawkins
REL 967a, Religion and Performance of Space
This interdisciplinary seminar explores categories, interpretations, and strategic articulations of space in a range of religious traditions. In conversation with the work of theorists of space, such as Henri Lefebvre,
Michel de Certeau, and Jonathan Z. Smith, the seminar examines spatial practices of religion in the United States during the modern era, including the conception, construction, and enactment of religious spaces. The course is structured around theoretical issues, including (historical) deployments of secularity as a framing mechanism, ideas about space and place, and relations between property and spirituality. (A)
Margaret Olin, Sally M. Promey
REL 981b, 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 medieval Europe and the United States from colonization to the present. The course focuses most specifically on the emergence of Christian art and architecture in dialogue
(or competition) with Greco-Roman religions and Islam, and on variations of Protestant Christianity. It also directs attention to case studies within Byzantine Orthodoxy, American Judaism, Islam, and Catholicism and looks to comparative situations and episodes of contention elsewhere in the world. (A)
Vasileios Marinis, Sally M. Promey
REL 986b, Holy Week and Easter: Mimesis and Anamnesis The course gives a profound introduction both to the evolution of Holy Week and Easter ceremonies and to the theology of the liturgical year. It explores the shape of the various celebrations against the background of their history, especially in Late Antique Jerusalem and the Medieval West, and reflects the coherence and unity of the mystery being celebrated. A focus will be on the Roman rite, to which the instructor belongs, but the participants are invited to introduce other contemporary traditions familiar to them. Special attention is given to the musical, dramatic, and artistic features of liturgy, to the various layers of celebration and participation, to the groups and interests involved, and to the cultural context of specific local churches. (W)
Harald Buchinger
REL 3910a–b, Colloquium 1 credit per term.
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 D. Jean
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