Past seminars
Below is an archive of weekly ITIA seminars dating back to 2004.
February
1 – George Parsons (University of Sheffield), ‘Finding Tropes of Hope: A Theologically-Orientated Analysis and Interpretation of the Ballad by James MacMillan’
September
- 28 – Fr Lawrence Lew OP (University Chaplain, Edinburgh), ‘The Theology and Metaphysics of the Gothic Cathedral’
October
- 5 – J.A.C. Redford (composer), ‘'Welcome All Wonders: A Composer's Journey’
- 12 - Dave Reinhardt (ITIA), 'God with us?: Discerning the Presence of the Divine in Embodied Expression'
- 19 - Jonathan Koestle-Cate (Goldsmiths College), TBC
November
- 2 - Katie Bradley (ITIA), 'Forbidden Broadway: A Theological Engagement with Popular Culture'
- 9 - Simon Marsden (Lancaster), 'Emily Brontë and the Religious Imagination'
- 16 - Yvonne Sherwood (Glasgow), 'Biblical Blaspheming: Trials of the Sacred for a "Secular" Age'
- 23 - Bernard Beatty (Liverpool/St Andrews), 'Henry Vaughan's Nicodemus'
- 30 - Elaine Graham (Chester), 'Jews, Pagans, Sceptics and Emperors: Public Theology as Christian Apologetics'
February
- 10 – Graham Maule (Artist, Wild Goose Resource Group), ‘Sacred Games: Art Praxis as a Tactical Ritual Process’
- 17 – Elijah Wade Smith (ITIA, St Andrews), 'Pop music as "parables of the kingdom of God": A theological rationale for positive engagement with popular and independent music'
- 24 – Peter Candler (Department of Religion, Baylor University), ‘The World Is against Us: Charles Péguy and the Modern Age’
March
- 2 – David Evans (School of Modern Languages, St Andrews), ‘Poetry and Belief in 19th Century France’
- 9 – Andrew Marin (President of the Marin Foundation), ‘Spoken Word, Slam Poetry, and the Exploration of Sex, Identity and Faith’
- 16 – John Gillespie (School of Languages & Culture, University of Ulster), ‘Sartre and God: A Spiritual Journey?'
- 23 – Seminar cancelled
- 30 – Spring Holiday
April
- 13 – Andrew Tate (Department of English & Creative Writing, Lancaster University), ‘“The World of Accidents”: The Book of Job and Twenty-First Century Narrative’
- 20 – Stephen Wright (Spurgeon’s College), ‘Theological Hermeneutics and the Christian Year: Time, Narrative and Performance’
September
October
- 28 – Ben Quash (King’s College, London): ‘How Can Job Contemplate the Dead Christ? Some Reflections on Reception History in the Light of Vittore Carpaccio’s Paintings’
November
- 4 – Jim McCullough (ITIA): ‘Richness and Terror, Beauty and Banality: Spiritual Formation in Dialogue with the Art of Peter Howson and Makoto Fujimura’
- 11 – Reading Week
- 18 – Philip Archer (Principal, Leith School of Art): 'Leith School of Art: A Vision for the Visual Arts'
- 25 – Steve Holmes (St Andrews): ‘The Necessity of Infinity: Visions of Heaven in Mark Twain’s Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven and Julian Barnes’s History of the World in 10 1/2 Chapters’
December
- 2 – David Fuller (Durham): ‘Poetry in the Church’
- 9 – Jennifer Craft (ITIA): ‘Making a Place on Earth: A Theology of Place and Human Making in the Writing of Wendell Berry’
- 16 – Paul Martens (Baylor): ‘"Can the Knight of Faith be like an Inspector of Taxes?" The Black Prince as a Rendering of Fear and Trembling’
February
March
April
- 1 – Spring Vacation
- 8 – Spring Vacation
- 15 – Jake Andrews (St Andrews): ‘Violent Monotheists, Violent Corporations: Caprica’s Prophetic Vision’
- 22 – Good Friday
- 29 – Bank Holiday
May
- 6 – Roger Allen (St Peter’s, Oxford)
October
- 8 – Wesley Vander Lugt (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Ready Actors, Fitting Action: An Improvisational Vision for Theological Ethics'
- 15 – Richard Demarco (Edinburgh): 'The Nature of the Christo-Judaic Heritage'
- 22 – Kelly Iverson (St Andrews, School of Divinity): 'A Centurion's Confession: A Performance-Critical Analysis of Mark 15:39'
- 29 – Sophie Oosterwijk (St Andrews): 'Mortality and Morality: The Danse Macabre in Medieval Europe'
November
- 5 – Alison Jack (St Andrews): 'Edwin Muir, "Scotland 1941" and the Scottish Reformation: The Debate Continues'
- 12 – Reading Week
- 19 – Stephen Prickett (Kent): 'The Ache in the Missing Limb: Literature and Theology'
- 26 – Josie Price (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Glory: A Nice Knockdown Argument'
December
- 3 – Paul Mealor (Aberdeen): 'Mealor's "Sabat Mater": Hidden Numerology and Renaissance Techniques'
- 10 – Berys Gaut (St Andrews, School of Philosopy): 'Creativity and Rationality'
- 17 – Bernard Beatty (Liverpool/ITIA): 'Images and Explanations: Theolgy as Criticism'
February
- 19 – David Brown (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘Water in religious art, architecture and film
- 26 – Philip Esler (St Andrews, School of Divinity): ‘Pacino di Bonaguida’s “Tree of Life”: interpreting the Bible in paint in early fourteenth century Italy’
March
- 5 – Grant Macaskill (St Andrews, School of Divinity): ‘“The Sound of her Wings”: a theological conversation with Gaiman on death’.
- 12 CEPPA event on ‘Music, Morality and Meaning’ – including lecture by James MacMillan CBE (11.30, Senate Rm, St Mary’s College).
- 19 – Jon Mackenzie (St Andrews, School of Divinity): ‘Sleeping Beauty? – On the dormant aesthetic at the heart of Karl Barth’s Church Dogmatics’
- 26 – Murdo Macdonald (Dundee): ‘The celtic dimension of Scottish art with particular reference to Carmina Gaedelica’
April
- 2 – Spring Vacation
- 9 – Spring Vacation
- 16 – Tony Clark (Friends)
- 23 – John Munns (Emmanuel College, Cambridge): ‘The evolution of the crucifixion in medieval art and thought’
- 30 – Aoife Monks (Birkbeck College): ‘Skulls, armour, ashes: souvenirs and relics at the theatre’
May
- 7 – Ivan Khovacs (Canterbury Christ Church)
- 14 – Tim Stanley (Manchester): ‘Job: a serious man’
- 21 – Spike Bucklow (Hamilton Kerr): ‘From lapis lazuli to the Virgin’s robe: the medium is the message’.
- 28 – Paul Martens (Baylor): 'The dialectical shape of metal and the via negativa'
February
- 13 – Férdia Stone-Davis (Cambridge): ‘Boethius and Kant on Music: Beauty, Harmony and Nature’
- 20 – Alison Milbank (Nottingham): ‘Chesterton, Tolkien and Thomism’
- 26 – John Milbank (Nottingham): ‘The Bread of Forgiveness: Shame, Reconciliation and Betrothal’
- 27 – Grant Macaskill (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘“Do you want to know how I got my scars?” The Origins of the Joker and Post 9-11 Reflections on Evil: A Theological Perspective’
March
- 6 – Michael Schmidt (Glasgow): ‘By Extension: The Bible in Poetic Practice’
- 13 – Christian George (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘Sacred Travels: Pilgrimage at the Intersection of Theology and the Arts’
- 20 – Peter Smaill: ‘Bach among the Heretics’
- 27 – Gwendolyn Starks (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘Becoming Dorothy: Translating the Character and Life of Dorothy L. Sayers to the Stage’
April
- 3 – Spring Vacation
- 10 – Spring Vacation
- 17 - Ian Bradley (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘I Have a Dream: The Message of Mamma Mia’
- 24 - John Dennison (St Andrews): ‘Adequate: Seamus Heaney and the Good of Poetry’
May
- 1 – Rupert Till (Huddersfield): 'Pop Cults: Studying Popular Music Subcultures and Scenes as Forms of New Religious Movement'
- 8 – Graham Ward (Manchester): ‘Belief and Imagination’
- 15 – David Brown (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘“The darkness and the light are both alike to thee”: Subversion in Symbols’
October
- 3 – Matt Farlow (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Insertion of the Normative: The Dramatic Need of Today'
- 10 – Phil Shaw (Leicester): '’Twixt Life and Death: Byron and the Sublime'
- 17 – Text
- 24 – James Jirtle (Durham): 'Aesthetic Judgement and Human Freedom in Augustine and Kant'
- 31 – Allan F. Westphall (St Andrews): 'Geographies of Orthodoxy'
November
- 7 – Linda Greenwood (St Andrews): 'In Quest of King Arthur: The Refracted Medievalism of C.S. Lewis and Charles Williams'
- 14 – Reading Week
- 21 – David Grummet (Exeter): 'Eating and Believing: The Theological Meanings of Food'
- 28 – Stephen Broad (RSAMD): 'Messiaen and Art Sacré'
December
- 5 – Allan Doig (Oxford): 'The Oxford Movement'
- 12 – Mark Johnson (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Punk Theology'
- 19 – Michael Downes (Director of Music, St Andrews): 'Spiritual Preoccupations in the Music of Jonathan Harvey'
February
- 15 – Bernard Beatty (Liverpool): ‘Are Invitations to Faith and Narrative the Same? The case of Shelley’s The Witch of Atlas’
- 22 – Grant Macaskill (St Andrews): 'Dead Gods and Rebel Angels: The Polemics of Power in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials and Hal Duncan's Book of All Hours'
- 29 – Dale Townshend (Stirling): ‘Gothic Mourning’
March
- 7 – Michael Ward (Cambridge): ‘Planet Narnia: The Seven Heavens in the Imagination of C.S. Lewis’
- 14 – Helen Barr (Oxford): ‘Religious Sensibilities in Chaucer's "Prioresse's Tale"’
- 28 – Andrew Rawnsley (Leuven): ‘Ideology and the Imaginary’ Spring holiday
April
- 4 – Spring Vacation
- 11 – Spring Vacation
- 18 – Donovan McAbee (St Andrews): ‘Metaphysical Suspicions: Charles Simic as Agnostic Theologian’
- 25 – Paul Blair (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘Charles Williams and "The Pattern of the Glory"’
May
- 2 – Oliver Davies (King's College London): ‘The Lordship of Christ: Freedom, Command and Sacrifice’
- 9 – John Milbank (Nottingham): ‘The World of the Imagination’
- 16 – Arthur Bradley (Lancaster): ‘The Deconstruction of Christianity: From the Hand of God to the Hand of Man’
- 23 – Jeremy Begbie (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘Sentimentality in Human life, Theology and the Arts’
- 30 – Hamid van Koten (Dundee): ‘The Role of the Imagination in Sufi Practices and Metaphysics’
October
- 5 – Reno Lauro (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘Cinema, Simulacra and the Pornography of the Real’
- 12 – Hannah Holtschneider (Edinburgh): ‘Holocaust Representation in Museums: A Closer Look at the Use of Photographs’
- 19 – Claire Crowley (Springs Dance Company): Christianity and Dance
- 26 – Steve Holmes (St Andrews): ‘Is Geraldine a Demon in Disguise? Poetry, Prophecy and Platonism in the Theology of Samuel Taylor Coleridge’
November
- 2 – Judith Buchanan (York): Silent Biblical Films
- 9 – Nile Green (Manchester): ‘Islam, Visions and Dreaming’
- 16 – Reading Week
- 23 – Chris Jones (St Andrews): ‘Beowulf and the End of the World’
- 30 – Richard Davey (Nottingham Trent): ‘Searching for a Faithful Art’
December
- 7 – Andrew Hass (Stirling): ‘“O thou senseless form”: The Venturing of Nothing’
- 14 – Gavin Hopps and Tom Jones (St Andrews): ‘“A Creed Outworn”: Alexander Pope and the Refusal of Secular Space’
February
- 9 – Does the devil really have all the best tunes?
- 16 – Bruce Longenecker (St Andrews): ‘Releasing the Captives and The Dismantling of Eucatastrophe: Filling the Narrative Gap of Luke 4:30’
- 23 – Mike Gray (Zürich): ‘Fantasy Fiction and Religious Identity’
March
- 2 – Gerard Loughlin (Durham): ‘Within the Image: Film as Icon’
- 9 – Bridget Heal (St Andrews): ‘Images of the Virgin Mary and Marian Devotion in Reformation Germany’
- 16 – Conor Cunningham (Nottingham): ‘Nihilism, Art, Theology and the Prodigal Son’
- 23 – David Torevell (Liverpool Hope): ‘Liturgy and the Beauty of the Unknown’
- 30 – Spring Vacation
April
- 6 – Spring Vacation
- 13 – Danny Gableman (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘Jesting in Earnest: Levity, Faith and the Counter-Enlightenment Aesthetics of George MacDonald’
- 20 – Emily Hearn (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘Seeing the Divine: A Christian Hindu Theology of Visual Art’
- 27 – John Butt (Glasgow): ‘Composers as Churchmen in the Modern Age: A Story of Harmony, Counterpoint and Dissonance’
May
- 4 – John Kitchen (Edinburgh): Issues in music and theology
- 11 – Natasha O’Hear (Oxford): ‘Images of Revelation’
- 29 - Peter van Inwagen (Notre Dame): ‘Was George Orwell a Metaphysical Realist?’
September
- 29 – Introductory session
October
- 6 – C.S. Lewis, ‘Christianity and Culture’
- 13 – G.M. Hopkins, Dylan Thomas and R.S. Thomas
- 20 – Stephen Penn (Stirling): ‘John Wyclif: Sacramentality and Sacramentalism’
- 27 – David Jones, ‘Art and Sacrament’
November
- 3 – Meg Ramey (St Andrews, ITIA): ‘When Infancy Gospels and Popular American Fiction Meet: Considering Anne Rice’s Christ the Lord’
- 10 – Reading Week
- 17 – Gisela Kreglinger (St Andrews ITIA): ‘Poets, Dreamers and Mediators: Nocturnal Modes in MacDonald and Novalis’
- 24 – Kirstie Blair (Glasgow): ‘Form, Faith and Feeling in Victorian Poetry’
December
- 1 – Robert Crawford (St Andrews): ‘More Distant than the Stars and Nearer than the the Eye: Some Religious Poems’
- 8 – Gavin Hopps (St Andrews, ITIA) ‘Morrissey and the Light that Never Goes Out.’ Respondent: Mark Elliott (St Andrews)
- 15 – David Brown (Durham): 'The Mystery in Words: Metaphor as a Way to God'
February
- 10 - Trevor Hart (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Creation and copyright - divine and human artistry'
- 17 - Discussion of Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism, Lecture 5 ('Calvinism and Art').
- 24 - Reno Lauro (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Panning the Semantic Trace: language, imagination and reality in the works of Owen Barfield & J.R.R. Tolkien'
March
- 3 - Discussion of Nicholas Wolterstorff, 'The Work of Making a Work of Music' (P. Alperson (ed.), What is Music? An Introduction to the Philosophy of Music (University Park, Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1987, 103-129.)
- 10 - Paul Scaringi (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Berdyaev & Seinfeld: It really is about nothing'
- 17 - Andy McCoy (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Sweet Sorrow? - Tragedy, redemption, and the tears of Christ'
- 27 - 29: Spring Research Colloquium - 'Patterns of promise: art, imagination and Christian hope'
May
- 12 - A Discussion of 'Ibsen's Treatment of Guilt' by P. T. Forsyth.
- 19 - Carrie Jenkins (Executive Director, Arche AHRC Research Centre for the Philosophy of Logic, Language, Mathematics and Mind), 'Imagination as a source of knowledge'.
- 26 - Philip Tallon (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Theodicists and other Monsters: The Logic and Aesthetics of Horror'
June
- 2 - Grant Macaskill (St Andrews): Philip Pullman's 'His Dark Materials' Trilogy in the light of Jewish apocalyptic literature.
October
- 7 - George MacDonald, 'The Imagination: Its Functions and Its Culture', and 'The Fantastic Imagination'
- 14 - Love Life - an engagement with Micheal O Siadhail's poetry
- 21 - J. R. R. Tolkien, 'On Fairy Stories' and 'Mythopoeia'
- 28 - Andrew Rawnsley (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Motifs of Incarnate Involvement in the later Philosophy of Merleau-Ponty'
November
- 4 - Dorothy Sayers, The Mind of the Maker (select extracts)
- 11 – Reading Week
- 18 - David Brown, God and Enchantment of Place, Chapter 1
- 25 - Patrick Sherry (Lancaster): 'A response to David Brown'
December
- 2 - Barth, Mozart, music and God (extracts from Karl Barth's essay on Mozart)
- 9 - David Robb (Dundee): 'Perhaps he will need to love Scotland too: The importance of MacDonald's Scottish sources'
February
- 11 - Mark Elliot (St Andrews): 'Three or Four Models for a theological approach to literature'
- 18 - Nathan MacDonald (St Andrews): 'Recasting the Golden Calf: The Richness of the Old Testament's Understanding of Idolatry'
- 25 - Gary College: 'Charles Dickens' The Life of Our Lord Revisited'
March
- 4 - Marilee Newell (St Andrews): 'Christ as Costume'
- 11 - Kirstin Johnson (St Andrews, ITIA): 'George MacDonald & Curdie: A Storied Response to 19th century Readings of Isaiah.'
- 18th - Murray Watts (filmmaker): 'Scriptural Interpretation in Film'
April
- 1 – Spring Vacation
- 8 – Spring Vacation
- 15 - Attend the play 'The Creation of the World and Other Business' at the Byre.
- 22 - Steve Guthrie (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Temples of the Spirit: Worship as Embodied Performance'
- 29 - Ivan Khovacs (St Andrews, ITIA)
May
- 6 - Gisela Kreglinger (St Andrews, ITIA):' George MacDonald on the Parables.'
October
- 8 - Introductions
- 15 - Discussion of Reformed Theology and Visual Culture: The Protestant Imagination From Calvin to Edwards, by William Dyrness (Cambridge University Press, 2004)
- 22 - Book discussion ctd.
- 29 - Book discussion ctd.
November
- 5 - Book discussion ctd.
- 12 - Reading Week
- 19 - Trinitarian Theology Day (Suzanne MacDonald, Tee Gatewood)
- 26 - Trinitarian Theology Day (Steve Prokopchuk, Chelle Stearns, Cindy Burris)
December
- 3 - Tony Clark (St Andrews, ITIA): 'Natural Scientific and Theological Method: Continuities and Discontinuities'
- 10 - David McNutt (St Andrews, ITIA): 'A Finger, a Flute, and a Fisherman: Applying Karl Barth's Doctrine of Revelation to the Arts'
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