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This fall, Dr.  Rebekah Lamb and Dr. Joanna Leidenhag will be teaching a new, interdisciplinary module they have co-designed for St. Andrews sub-honours students. This collaboration brings St. Marys’ Science-Engaged Theology and ITIA research to undergraduate education, covering a wide-range of disciplines, including physics, psychology, literature, film studies, metaphysics, Christian doctrine, intellectual history and aesthetics.

DI2009,  Saints and Cyborgs: The Imagination in Theology and Science introduces students to the study of science and theology, as expressed within the arts. This module is especially organised around theological and scientific ideas of what it means to be human, particularly as imagined in different artistic forms. From Aeschylus’s Prometheus Unbound to George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, with Julian of Norwich, Dante, Mary Shelley, Alister McGrath and Marshall McLuhan in between, the module engages with key questions concerning humanity’s place within the cosmos and our relationship to the divine, technology and everyday life and living.

Focusing on the topic of ‘Creation and New Creation in the Inklings’, Professor Judith Wolfe, in collaboration with Malcom Guite, spoke at Duke University’s Symposium DITA10 | Creation and New Creation: Discerning the Future of Theology and the Arts. St. Mary’s Professor N.T. Wright also spoke at the Symposium.

On Thursday, 19th of September, Dr. Rebekah Lamb will be speaking on Newman’s Idea of History as Spiritual Ecology at the Ecology and Religion in Nineteenth-Century Studies Conference, a flightless, multi-site, interdisciplinary conference hosted by Baylor University, Georgetown University, Lancaster University and the University of Washington. Conference details can be found , here.

Dr. George Corbett has published a collaborative volume, titled Annunciations: Sacred Music for the Twenty-First Century, which recently grew out of ITIA’s Theo-Artistry Project. 

A major work on sacred music, composition, biblical studies, and religious experience, Annunciations “provides an indispensable resource for scholars and artists working at the interface between theology and the arts, and for those involved in sacred music […] It will also be of interest to anyone concerned with the ways in which the Divine communicates through word and artistry to humanity.”

Excerpt from Annunciation’s Abstract:

“Our contemporary culture is communicating ever-increasingly through the visual, through film, and through music. This makes it ever more urgent for theologians to explore the resources of art for enriching our understanding and experience of the Judeo-Christian tradition. Annunciations: Sacred Music for the Twenty-First Century answers this need, evaluating the relationship between the sacred and the composition, performance, and appreciation of music.

Through the theme of ‘annunciations’, this volume interrogates how, when, why, through and to whom God communicates in the Old and New Testaments. In doing so, it tackles the intimate relationship between Scriptural reflection and musical practice in the past, its present condition, and what the future might hold.Annunciations comprises three parts. Part I sets out flexible theological and compositional frameworks for a constructive relationship between the sacred and music. Part II presents the reflections of theologians and composers involved in collaborating on new pieces of sacred choral music, alongside the six new scores and links to the recordings. Part III considers the reality of programming and performing sacred works today.”

Review from Dr Jeremy Thurlow, University of Cambridge:

“This fascinating volume draws together contributions from a wide range of theologians and practising musicians to consider the ways that theology and belief can interact with the practice and appreciation of music, to mutually invigorating effect. It is an impressive and exciting achievement and I am sure it will be read eagerly by all those for whom music can illuminate the sacred.”

For an interview with Dr. George Corbett on the volume, see the following link with OpenBook Publishers, here.

Publication details

Corbett, George (ed.). Annunciations: Sacred Music for the Twenty-First Century (Cambridge: Open Book Publishers, 2019), 392 pp.

ISBN (Electronic): 9781783747283, 9781783747290, 9781783747306, 9781783747313
ISBN (Print): 9781783747269, 9781783747276

The volume is available in hardback, paperback and open book formats.

On 10 October (2019) ITIA was delighted to host the poet Michael O’Siadhail for a reading from his newly published magnum opus, The Five Quintets (Baylor University Press). St. Mary’s own Professor N.T. Wright offered a preliminary reflection and has recently written a review of The Five Quintets for Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review.