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 1, 2025. An updated list is available online at http://ism.yale.edu.
The letter “a” following the course number denotes the fall term; the letter “b” denotes the spring term.
Courses fulfilling the distribution requirements for institute students pursuing the M.Div. are indicated with a letter representing the subject area: W (Worship), M (Music), and/or A (Visual Arts or Literature). In the School of Music, courses designated NP are nonperformance courses. Courses designated P/F will be graded on a Pass/Fail basis. See the Schools’ respective bulletins for full explanation.
Music Courses
MUS 506a–b, 606a–b, 706a–b, Lyric Diction for Singers 2 credits per term. A language course designed specifically for the needs of singers. Intensive work on pronunciation, grammar, and literature throughout the term. French, German, English, Italian, Russian, and Latin are offered in alternating terms. Required. Faculty
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. Tomoko Nakayama
MUS 511b, Music before 1750 4 credits. NP. Group B. An analytic and cultural survey of European music before 1750. Alongside detailed examination of notated repertoire representing the major styles, genres, and composers of the period, the course explores the roles of listeners and performers, the social contexts of music making, and the relationships among notated and vernacular music. Topics include the development of the modern notational system, the transmission of music as a result of social and power structures, vernacular traditions of music making, the place of music in relationship to changing world views and cosmologies, the relationship between music and language, the emergence of independent instrumental music, and the development of musical form. The course explores both music that was incorporated in the canon of Western music but also composers and musical traditions that were marginalized. Enrollment by placement exam. May be taken as an elective, space permitting. Markus Rathey
MUS 514a, Keyboard Harmony for Organists 2 credits. In this course, organ students will develop applied music theory at the keyboard including basic figured bass, melody harmonization, transposition, score reading, and basic species counterpoint improvisation. Bálint Karosi
MUS 515a,b, Improvisation at the Organ I 2 credits. This course in beginning organ improvisation explores a variety of harmonization techniques, with a strong focus on formal structure (binary and ternary forms, rondo, song form). Classes typically are made up of two students for a one-hour lesson on Mondays. The term culminates with an improvised recital, open to the public. In this recital, each student improvises for up to seven minutes on a submitted theme. Prerequisite: MUS 514. Jeffrey Brillhart
MUS 519a–b, 619a–b, 719a–b, ISM Colloquium 1 credit per term. NP. P/F. 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 each term. Martin Jean
MUS 522a–b, 622a–b, 722a–b, Acting for Singers 1 credit per term. Designed to address the specialized needs of the singing actor. Studies include technique in character analysis, together with studies in poetry as it applies to art song literature. Class work is extended in regular private coaching. ISM students are required to take two terms in their second year. Glenn Seven Allen
MUS 531a–b, 631a–b, Repertory Chorus—Voice 2 credits per term. 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. Jeffrey Douma
MUS 532a–b, 632a–b, Repertory Chorus—Conducting 2 credits per term. 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. Jeffrey Douma
MUS 535a–b, 635a–b, Recital Chorus—Voice 2 credits per term. A chorus open by audition and conducted by graduate choral conducting students. It serves as the choral ensemble for four or five degree recitals per year. Jeffrey Douma
MUS 536a–b, 636a–b, Recital Chorus—Conducting 2 credits per term. 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. Jeffrey Douma
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 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. At the discretion of each department, seminar requirements can be met partially through off-campus field trips and/or off-campus fieldwork, e.g., performance or teaching. Required of all School of Music students except pianists who take 533, 633, 733. Faculty
MUS 546a–b, 646a–b, 746a–b, Yale Camerata 2 credits per term. 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. Felicia Barber
MUS 556a, Liturgical Keyboard Skills I 2 credits. In this course, students gain a deeper understanding of and appreciation for musical genres, both those familiar to them and those 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. Hymn playing, with an emphasis on methods of encouraging congregational singing, is the principal focus of the organ instruction, but there is also instruction in chant and anthem accompaniment, including adapting a piano reduction to the organ. In the gospel style, 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. Prerequisite: graduate-level organ and piano proficiency. Walden Moore, Mark Miller
MUS 558b, Liturgical Keyboard Skills II 2 credits. This course continues work begun in Liturgical Keyboard Skills I (MUS 556) and delves more deeply into the hymnic and liturgical repertoire of American and European classical traditions. Focused on the accompaniment and leadership of congregational singing, the course systematically surveys the service music and hymnic repertoire of Catholic and mainline Protestant traditions in the U.S. Students continue building skills in strong leadership of congregational song and improvisational skills needed to support the accompaniment of the liturgy. Students will jointly lead an extended choral liturgy as a final project to the course. Prerequisite: MUS 556. Richard Webster
MUS 565a, Elements of Choral Technique 2 credits per term. An exploration of conducting technique, rehearsal technique, score analysis, and repertoire for the choral conductor, this course is designed for students who are not majoring in choral conducting but are interested in learning the essentials of choral technique. Repertoire from the sixteenth century to the present is explored. Felicia Barber
MUS 571a–b, 671a–b, 771a–b, Yale Schola Cantorum 1 credit per term. Specialist chamber choir for the development of advanced ensemble skills and expertise in demanding solo roles (in music before 1750 and from the last one hundred years). Enrollment required for voice majors enrolled through the Institute of Sacred Music. Stefan Parkman
MUS 594a,b, 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. Occasional weekend sessions and extra rehearsals during production weeks can be expected. Students are expected to learn quickly and must be prepared to tackle a sizeable amount of repertoire. James Taylor
MUS 595a–b, 695a–b, Performance Practice for Singers 2 credits per term. A four-term course cycle exploring the major issues and repertoire of Western European historically informed performance, including notation, use of modern and manuscript editions, and national performance styles. Includes a survey of solo and chamber vocal repertoire (song, madrigal, cantata, opera, oratorio, motet) from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, with a focus on ornamentation, practical performance issues, and recital planning. The sequence is designed to provide the foundation to a practical career in historical performance. Open to conductors and instrumentalists with permission of the instructor. Jeffrey Grossman
MUS 604b, The Sacred Concerto in the Seventeenth Century 4 credits. Markus Rathey
MUS 615a,b, Improvisation at the Organ II 2 credits. This course explores modal improvisation, focusing on the composition techniques of Charles Tournemire and Olivier Messiaen. Students learn to improvise five-movement, chant-based suites (Introit-Offertoire-Elevation-Communion-Pièce Terminale), versets, and a variety of free works using late-twentieth-century language. Classes typically are made up of two students for a one-hour lesson on Mondays. The term culminates with an improvised recital, open to the public. In this recital, each student improvises for up to seven minutes on a submitted theme. Prerequisite: MUS 515. Jeffrey Brillhart
MUS 617a, Music and Theology in the Sixteenth Century 4 credits. NP. Group B. 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 many musicians and composers were responsible for the spreading of the thoughts of Reformation. But while Luther gave an important place to music, Zwingli and Calvin were much more skeptical. Music, especially sacred music, constituted a problem because it was tightly connected with Catholic liturgical and aesthetic traditions. Reformers had to think about the place music could have in worship and about the function of music in secular life. Markus Rathey
MUS 623a,b, Early Music Coaching for Singers 1 credit. Individual private coaching in early repertoire, focusing on historically informed performance practice, in preparation for required recitals and concerts. Students are coached on such elements of musical style as ornamentation, phrasing, rubato, articulation, and rhetoric, and in English, French, Italian, German, Latin, and Spanish diction. Students are expected to bring recital and concert repertoire to coaching sessions as performance times approach. Jeffrey Grossman
MUS 650a, Silenced Voices: Music, Race, and Gender in Early Music 4 credits. Periods in music history are often classified with convenient labels such as “common practice,” “early music,” etc., and it is quietly assumed that everybody shares these labels. But if we ask more critically, it becomes apparent that the labels encode a specific view of music history that is based on the establishment of certain musical forms, the modern tonal system, and the concept of a musical work. The labels are not neutral, but they provide categories in which we approach musical traditions, and works or traditions that don’t fit into these categories are often neglected or ignored. Our labels, as well as the music they describe, do not exist independently but are embedded in a societal context. Music grows out of specific functions and reflects power relationships within society. Music not only reflects the social stratifications and power structures of the past but in some cases also perpetuates these ideas. This course challenges some of the common narratives about the history of early music. Focusing on four distinct areas, we explore early examples of music by Jewish composers, the role of women in the creation and performance of music, the history of African American music before the nineteenth century, and the amalgamation of Native American and western traditions. Each section begins with a critical assessment of the representation of these marginalized groups in western classical music and then shifts the focus to music written and performed by these groups. The goal of the course is not another western appropriation of music by marginalized groups but rather a critical evaluation of the western canon in dialogue with music that is commonly excluded from this canon. The course provides an overview of current scholarship and presents selected compositions. The final project for each student is the development of a concert program (with program notes) that reflects the issues raised in the course. Markus Rathey
MUS 656a, Liturgical Music Skills I 2 credits. In this course, students are coached in musical skills pertinent to the profession of church music, including essential keyboard skills and techniques (harmonization, score-reading, and transposition); all aspects of service playing (leading and playing hymns, accompaniment of anthems and psalms and other liturgical music); and essential skills in choral direction. Students work in small groups for coaching. Appropriately qualified students have opportunities to play services and work with the Yale Consort, other ad hoc ensembles, Yale chapels, or local church positions, which are evaluated in conversation with the instructor. Some written work is required to record and process observations in rehearsal and coachings. Richard Webster
MUS 657b, Liturgical Music Skills II 2 credits. A continuation of Liturgical Music Skills I that progress students into more difficult anthems, oratorio transcriptions, chant accompaniment and direction, and hymn arrangements. Students work in small groups for coaching. Appropriately qualified students have opportunities to play services and work with the Yale Consort, other ad hoc ensembles, Yale chapels, or local church positions, which are evaluated in conversation with the instructor. Some written work will be required to record and process observations in rehearsal and coachings. Richard Webster
MUS 715a,b, Improvisation at the Organ III 2 credits. This course explores the improvisation of a full organ symphony in four movements, Tryptique (Rondo-Aria-Theme/variations), improvisation on visual images, text-based improvisation, and silent film. Classes typically are made up of two students for a one-hour lesson on Mondays. The term culminates with an improvised recital, open to the public. In this recital, each student improvises for up to ten minutes on a submitted theme. Prerequisite: MUS 615. Jeffrey Brillhart
MUS 815a,b, Improvisation at the Organ IV 2 credits. Prerequisite: MUS 715. Jeffrey Brillhart
Divinity Courses
Courses are 3 credits unless otherwise indicated.
REL 643a, Music and Theology in the Sixteenth Century 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 by many musicians and composers were responsible for the spreading of the thoughts of Reformation. But while Luther gave an important place to music, Zwingli and Calvin were much more skeptical. Music, especially sacred music, constituted a problem because it was tightly connected with Catholic liturgical and aesthetic traditions. Reformers had to think about the place music could have in worship and about the function of music in secular life. (M) Markus Rathey
REL 682a, Foundations of Christian Worship This is a core course in Liturgical Studies. The course focuses on theological and historical approaches to the study of Christian worship, with appropriate attention to cultural context and contemporary issues. The first part of the course seeks to familiarize students with the foundations of communal, public prayer in the Christian tradition (such as its roots in Hebrew Scripture and the New Testament; its Trinitarian source and direction; its ways of figuring time, space, and human embodiment; its use of language, music, the visual arts, etc.). The second part offers a sketch of historical developments, from earliest Christian communities to present times. In addition, select class sessions focus on questions of overall importance for liturgical life, such as the relationship between gender differences and worship life, and the contemporary migration of liturgical practices into cyberspace. (W) Melanie Ross
REL 687a, Books of Common Prayer: Anglican Liturgy in History, Theology, and Practice This course traces the development of Anglican liturgy from the time of Henry VIII through the English prayer books of 1549–1662, and then the books and practices of the Episcopal Church and the wider Anglican Communion to the present day. Attention is given to the Reformation, the first American liturgies, the aftermath of the Oxford Movement, and the twentieth-century Liturgical Movement. Theologies and practices in present Anglican worship, including sacramental theology and issues of enculturation, are also addressed. Prerequisite: M.Div. students should normally have taken REL 682. (W) Andrew McGowan
REL 690a, Liturgical Theology This seminar proposes for scholarly inquiry key texts and themes in theological reflections on Christian worship. We probe some of the voices that initially defined the field in the twentieth century, asking: What is “theological” about this reflection on worship? How is the relationship between Christian faith and cultural context understood? What has been occluded in most traditional definitions of “liturgical theology”? Who is absent, and who cannot be rendered visible, within the traditional framework? We also keep our eyes open to theologies of worship embedded in actual, local congregational practices. These practices are integrated into the work of the seminar through visits to distinctly different worshipping communities during the course of the term. (W) Melanie Ross
REL 729b, Liturgy in the City of Rome The city of Rome looms large in the history of the medieval West and the Church. But how did a pagan imperial city become the center of the western Christian world? This seminar traces the story of Rome from Late Antiquity to the Renaissance through its unique confluence of monuments and ritual. It queries how the bishops of Rome used the liturgy of the Church to construct a Christian city and how that city lived with its classical past. Following the monuments and liturgy of Rome across history allows us to engage with the city as it was encountered and experienced by potentates and peasants alike and to trace the long path of the city’s Christianization and many attempts to renew itself. We read a mix of primary sources and modern scholarship. All texts are available in English. Knowledge of Latin, French, German, and/or Italian will be helpful, but not required. (W) Tyler Sampson
REL 731a, Origins of Christian Art in Late Antiquity This course examines the origins and development of Christian art in the visual culture of Roman late antiquity, ca. 200–ca. 500 CE. Its aim is to introduce students to key developments in the history of Christian art through the close study of images preserved on a range of objects in different media (including frescoes, glassware, sculpture, coins, textiles, mosaic) made for a variety of purposes. The course involves visits to the Yale Art Gallery and focuses on the importance of situating objects within their larger social and cultural context through the analysis of primary source evidence, which may include archaeological, iconographic, epigraphic, and textual sources (Jewish, early Christian, and other contemporary Roman texts). Topics include the literary and archaeological evidence for early Christian attitudes to visual representation; contexts of manufacture; the social and economic basis of patronage; Roman political influence on Christian iconography; development of new genres of imagery; and the role of imperial patronage in the transformation of civic spaces. (A) Felicity Harley
REL 801a or b, Marquand Chapel Choir 1 credit per term. Faculty
REL 802a or b, Marquand Gospel and Inspirational Choir 0.5 credit per term. Mark Miller
REL 933a, Poetry and Faith This course is designed to look at issues of faith through the lens of poetry. With some notable exceptions, the course concentrates on modern poetry—that is, poetry written between 1850 and 2013. Inevitably, the course also looks at poetry through the lens of faith, but a working assumption of the course is that a poem is, for a reader (it’s more complicated for a writer), art first and faith second. “Faith” in this course generally means Christianity, and that is the primary context for reading the poems. But the course also engages with poems from other faith traditions, as well as with poems that are wholly secular and even adamantly anti-religious. (A) Christian Wiman
REL 943a, Gospel, Rap, and Social Justice: Prison and the Arts Students in this course collaborate with formerly incarcerated musicians and other survivors of prison to create performances inspired by their collective reading of Dante’s Divine Comedy, Michelle Alexander’s The New Jim Crow, and a variety of texts documenting the impact of the carceral state on communities of color. Students learn how to apply the arts to community service and activism as they learn about the American criminal justice system and its relevance to Dante’s poem from a social justice perspective. (A) Ronald S. Jenkins
REL 953b, Critical Methods in Reading Poetry Theologically This course explores poetry and the study of poetry as forms of theological discourse. Through the use of a variety of critical methods and close readings of individual poems and poetic sequences, students consider how the form as well as the subject matter of the poetry opens up new horizons for illuminating and articulating theological themes. With selections from twentieth and twenty-first-century poets, including works by Asian American and African American writers, this class examines how modern and late-modern poets have created fresh embodiments of faith perspectives and contributed to both the expressive and reflective tasks of theology. This course has no specific prerequisites, but a background in literary studies would be helpful. (A) David Mahan
REL 956a, Faith, Doubt, and Redemption in Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Fiction The pressures of secularization and other challenges in late-modern society have provoked widespread reconsideration of traditional expressions of faith. Notions of God, salvation, redemption, and of faith itself, are subject to scrutiny by religious and non-religious people alike. This course examines this phenomenon through the literary vision expressed in the fiction of several modern writers—including Flannery O’Connor, James Baldwin, Marilynne Robinson, and others—considering the theological and literary implications of their work to modern quests for redemption. (A) David Mahan
REL 964b, Imagining the Apocalypse: Scripture to Modern Fiction This course explores the literary-theological and sociological facets of the apocalyptic, primarily through modern works of the imagination. Sessions begin with an introduction to various definitions and ideas of the apocalyptic, with special reference to biblical literature in the Hebrew Scriptures as well as the New Testament. From these distinctively theological/religious visions, in which God is the primary actor and God’s people figure as the main subjects, the course explores how that framework for the apocalyptic has undergone significant transformations in the literary imagination of late-modern, particularly Western, societies. Through such prose works as A Canticle for Leibowitz by Walter Miller, Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, and Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, the course considers how literary portrayals of apocalypse contemplate themes that resonate with significant theological concerns. (A) David Mahan
REL 966a Sensational Materialities: Sensory Cultures in History, Theory, and Method This interdisciplinary seminar explores the sensory and material histories of (often religious) images, objects, buildings, and performances as well as the potential for the senses to spark contention in material practice. While course content focuses on United States things and religions (given the professor’s areas of expertise and academic appointments), the course also considers broader geographical and categorical parameters so as to invite intellectual engagement with the most challenging and decisive developments in relevant fields, including recent literatures on material agencies. The goal is to investigate possibilities for scholarly examination of a robust human sensorium of sound, taste, touch, scent, and sight—and even “sixth senses”—the points where the senses meet material things (and vice versa) in life and practice. Topics include the cultural construction of the senses and sensory hierarchies; investigation of the sensory capacities of things; and specific episodes of sensory contention in and among various religious traditions. In addition, the course invites thinking beyond the “Western” five senses to other locations and historical possibilities for identifying the dynamics of sensing human bodies in religious practices, experience, and ideas. (A) Sally Promey
REL 970a, 9270a, Theory in Mourning: Readings in Race, Religion, Gender, and Sexuality “I came to theory because I was hurting.” This is how the late bell hooks begins her 1991 essay, “Theory as Liberatory Practice.” Taking that opening line as its thematic cue, this course approaches key texts in Black feminist, queer, and trans theory with a mournful orientation. The course begins with three essays—mourning essays by Freud (1917), Klein (1940), and Fanon (1952)—to which subsequent texts respond in a variety of ways. The course then moves through key texts from the late 1980s to the present. The aim of this course is to familiarize students with key texts in Black feminist, queer, and trans theory, while cultivating appreciation for how texts considered theory are as much singular sites of experience as they are enabling of critical abstraction. The course asks not only how mourning and theorizing (in)form each other, but also how mourning theory orients studies of race, religion, gender, and sexuality and vice versa. Lingering with these questions is crucial for academic and ministerial study committed to critically addressing challenges in today’s world with care. (A) Adrián Hernández-Acosta
REL 3630a–b, Church Music Skills 1.5 credits per term. Pending audition, students take regular individual or group coaching (weekly 30-minute or biweekly 60-minute) in a musical skill—gospel piano, Hammond organ, voice, or percussion—relevant to leadership of congregational song in worship. Additionally, as part of the course, students attend a weekly studio class where they study and enhance ensemble skills. A final public performance project is required. (M) Braxton Shelley
REL 3910a–b, ISM Colloquium 0.5 credit per term. P/F. 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 each term. Martin Jean
REL 6201a, Early Christian Political Thought This course examines early Christian political thought, focusing on the contexts and conversations that shaped Christian theo-political thought from the Apostolic period to Augustine’s City of God, as well as theological dynamics that continue to inform Christian political discourse today. Through readings, lectures, class discussion and presentations, students explore how Christians framed and grappled theologically with the political challenges which emerged in the first to early fifth centuries, including: Christian identity formation in dialogue with Greco-Roman and Jewish perspectives; state-sponsored persecution; dilemmas around political involvement, military service, wealth, and other church-empire tensions; and the shifting role of the church from a counter-cultural movement actively awaiting Christ’s immanent return to an imperially-sanctioned religion settling in for a long-term presence on earth. In addition, the course considers how early Christian texts provide theo-political resources that remain relevant today, including around concepts of power, freedom, authority, community, and the political dimension of creaturely and societal life. (A) Awet Andemicael
REL 6202a, The Liturgical Year This course studies the history, theology, and practice of the liturgical year in an ecumenical context. As a course in liturgical studies, students are introduced to the liturgical and ritual marking of time, how and why feasts are celebrated, and the centrality of the mystery of salvation to the church’s year. We pay special attention to how the feasts and seasons of the Church’s year coincide with Christian prayer, song, and the lectionary cycle, and discuss practical dimensions of drawing upon the liturgical year as sources for catechesis and spiritual development in pastoral settings. Prerequisite: Foundations of Christian Worship or instructor permission. (W) Tyler Sampson
REL 7210a, Marriage and Sexual Relations in Late Antique and Medieval Christian Ritual Practice This course examines the historical practice of marriage formation in late antiquity and the Middle Ages. Beginning with ancient Jewish and Greco-Roman perspectives, it explores how different communities in the Mediterranean conceptualized and enacted nuptial kinship through a ritual process from betrothal through consummation and probes the anthropological and religious underpinnings of these practices. It then considers early Christian debates on the roles of marriage, sex, and family, and analyzes the early evidence for the Christianization of marriage ritual. Through original texts (available in translation), as well as visual and material sources, the course traces the development of these rites across medieval Christian traditions of the West (Italy, Gaul, Spain, etc.) and East (Byzantine, Coptic, Syriac, Slavic, etc.), and explores the diversity of theological visions and socio-cultural values they express. While focused on pre-modern Christianity, this course encourages frequent comparison to Jewish and Islamic traditions (including legal and ritual frameworks, as well as the calendrical regulation of sexual relations), invites comparison to other kinship rituals (such as medieval rites of “brother-making” or filial adoption), and also provides opportunities for students to engage with ritual developments of the Reformation and explore the legacy of historic marriage practices within contemporary religious, legal, and cultural traditions and debates. (W) Gabriel Radle
REL 7212a, The Eucharist Through the Ages The adage attributed to the French theologian Henri de Lubac that “the Church makes the Eucharist and the Eucharist makes the Church” summarizes much of the twentieth-century historical and theological reflection that led numerous Christian denominations to enact a period of liturgical renewal and reform, which in some respects is still ongoing. The goal of this seminar is to academically participate in the process of critically reflecting about the nature of the Eucharist through an examination of the shape, form and texts employed across Christian history, from antiquity to today. We examine studies and original texts (in translation) to provide perspective on the origins and historical development of the eucharistic liturgy, survey the structure and content of different medieval rites both eastern and western, examine artistic, musical and architectural developments, and undertake a systematic reflection on various theological issues across Christian history (e.g. commensality, real presence, transubstantiation, the role of ministers, excommunication, the dynamics of liturgical reform, and other concerns). Illumined by historical and theological reflection, students also engage in critically examining contemporary pastoral concerns as instantiated in different denominations. (W) Gabriel Radle
REL 9206a, Text, Theory, Theology? This course surveys two twentieth-century histories of textual criticism—what are called “literary theory” and “Caribbean critique”—with a focus on the ongoing even if only implicit conversation each has sustained with operative categories for theology and religious studies more broadly (e.g., interpretation, authority, tradition, experience, translation, and the Other). The range of the course’s selected readings aims at a degree of representativeness that highlights the often-ignored historicity of literary theory and the equally denied generalizability of Caribbean critique. Given the level of abstraction at which most of the readings attend to language, in-class discussions include an analysis of Derek Walcott’s poem “The Sea is History” as prompted by each week’s readings to provide students with a consistent pedagogical object. Overall, this course asks about the significance of the dis/continuities of literary theory and Caribbean critique with operative categories for theology and religious studies. Prerequisite: at least one course in theological studies, or equivalent (consult instructor). (A) Adrián Hernández-Acosta
ISM Courses Hosted in Other Departments
AMST 630/HSAR 529/RLST 819b, Museums and Religion: The Politics of Preservation and Display This interdisciplinary seminar focuses on the tangled relations of religion and museums, historically and in the present. What does it mean to “exhibit religion” in the institutional context of the museum? What practices of display might one encounter for this subject? What kinds of museums most frequently invite religious display? How is religion suited (or not) for museum exhibition and museum education? Enrollment is by permission of the instructor; qualified undergraduates are not only welcome but also encouraged to join us. There are no set prerequisites, but, assuming available seats, permission is granted on the basis of response to three questions: Why do you wish to take this course? What relevant educational or professional background/experience do you bring to the course? How does the course help you to meet your own intellectual, artistic, or career aspirations? (A) Sally Promey
AMST 805/HSAR 720/RLST 699a, Sensational Materialities: Sensory Cultures in History, Theory, and Method This interdisciplinary seminar explores the sensory and material histories of (often religious) images, objects, buildings, and performances as well as the potential for the senses to spark contention in material practice. With a focus on American things and religions, the course also considers broader geographical and categorical parameters so as to invite intellectual engagement with the most challenging and decisive developments in relevant fields, including recent literatures on material agencies. The goal is to investigate possibilities for scholarly examination of a robust human sensorium of sound, taste, touch, scent, and sight—and even “sixth senses”—the points where the senses meet material things (and vice versa) in life and practice. Topics include the cultural construction of the senses and sensory hierarchies; investigation of the sensory capacities of things; and specific episodes of sensory contention in and among various religious traditions. In addition, the course invites thinking beyond the “Western” five senses to other locations and historical possibilities for identifying the dynamics of sensing human bodies in religious practices, experience, and ideas. The Sensory Cultures of Religion Research Group meets approximately once per month at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays; class participants are strongly encouraged, but not required, to attend. Enrollment is by permission of the instructor; qualified undergraduates are not only welcome but encouraged to join us. There are no set prerequisites, but, assuming available seats, permission will be granted on the basis of response to three questions: Why do you wish to take this course? What relevant educational or professional background/experience do you bring to the course? How does the course help you to meet your own intellectual, artistic, or career aspirations? (A) Sally Promey
ENGL 346/HUMS 253/RSLT 233a, Poetry and Faith Issues of faith examined through poetry, with a focus on modern poems from 1850 to the present. Poems from various faith traditions studied, as well as to secular and antireligious poetry. (A) Christian Wiman
MUSI 483b, The Gospel Imagination: Tradition and Revolution This course studies the black gospel tradition, focusing on the genre’s distinctive combination of sound and belief. Music, movement, and conviction, the three expressions gospel holds together, are explored through three interpretive lenses: exemplary performers, pivotal periods, and formal processes. This semester’s work focuses on the musicians who turned this stream of Black sacred music on its head–the radicals and revolutionaries who provoked movement between creative eras. The class brings material and approaches from the fields of musicology, music theory, ethnomusicology, black studies, homiletics, and theology to bear on two questions: (1) What work—musical, cultural, and spiritual—does gospel do for its various audiences? and (2) How does the function of the gospel song shape its form? Through a combination of weekly reading, listening and writing assignments, students immerse themselves in “the gospel imagination,” the network of belief, performance, and reception that sustains many expressions of black Christian faith. Alongside these assignments, students undertake composition in the gospel style, culminating in a virtual performance of their musical creation. (M) Braxton Shelley
MUSI 486a, Judeo-Islamic Musical Intersections The course explores diverse contexts and dynamics of musical encounters between Muslims and Jews throughout their long shared history and along the vast Lands of Islam. It focuses on specific moments of exchanges and sharing as well as on tensions and rivalries over musical ownership. Ability to read or play music and any level of knowledge of Arabic, Hebrew, Turkish or Persian desirable but not required. (M) Edwin Seroussi
MUSI 7230a, Black Music and Social Life in the Digital Episteme Black music’s online life unfolds at the intersection of two kinds of social media: musical sound and technological ecologies. Through exploring this intersection, this seminar brings crucial aspects of both media into relief. In dialogue with work in the fields of musicology, ethnomusicology, music theory, media studies, visual culture, and philosophy, we analyze remediations of Black music and musicalities on platforms like X, Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, WhatsApp, and Facebook, among others. The seminar engages with the theory of “digital antiphony” as a framework for understanding the modes of creativity that many digital artifacts reveal and the ways of listening that these potentially viral objects solicit, showing how various notions of musicality shape the experience of Blackness and sociality in the digital episteme. (M) Braxton Shelley