Previous Years' Course Catalogues

The study of liturgy as a praxis-based source of theology through a survey of seminal thinkers in classical and contemporary liturgical studies. A consideration of liturgical methodology and hermeneutics, the relationship between liturgy and theology, liturgy and culture, worship and ethics, as well as the impact of the ecumenical liturgical movement, feminist theology and emerging postcolonial perspectives.

The study of liturgy as ritual activity with a focus on the discipline of ritual studies and anthropology as a resource for liturgical scholarship and pastoral praxis. The course will consist of a close examination of seminal thinkers in ritual studies, their classic and contemporary works; consideration of methodological issues posed by social science methods; relationship between liturgy and ritual, theology and embodiment, worship and culture, ritual and ethics.

This course explores the theological, philosophical, and historical contributions of Maximus the Confessor. Students will engage with Maximus’s theological and philosophical sources, his historical context, and examine his influence in the Christian theological tradition. Through critical analysis of texts and discussion, participants will gain a deeper understanding of Maximus’s role in synthesizing prior Christian authors and shaping subsequent Christian theological discourse.

This seminar will examine the doctrine of individuality developed by the Franciscan thinkers John Duns Scotus and William of Ockham and the configuration of their thought as one or another form of metaphysical "individualism." It does so historically against the backdrop of both Franciscan spirituality and the contested "Aristotelian ism" of their university environment. The seminar is both an illustration of the value in and a critical reappraisal of a problem-historical analysis of
philosophy that centres upon philosophical accounts of our daily experience of both universality in the world, i.e., the fact that creatures come to us in kinds, and individuality, i.e., the fact that it is individual creatures that come to us in kinds.

This course will be devoted to a close reading of the liturgical commentaries of the brilliant Carolingian bishop and diplomat Amalarius of Metz (ca. 775-ca. 850). Amalarius was a pioneer of the "allegorical" method of liturgical exegesis. Although his political enemies secured the condemnation of some of his ideas as heretical, Amalarius's writings were enormously influential and were adapted and imitated by liturgical commentators into the late Middle Ages. After a being introduced to the forms and genres of the early medieval liturgy and to Amalarius's career and allegorical method, we will read the bulk of Amalarius's genuine surviving exegetical writings alongside relevant early medieval liturgical texts. At all times we will situate Amalarius's concerns against the wider backdrop of liturgical developments in his age and against current trends in scholarship on rnedievalliturgy. This course will be suitable both for students who have had some prior instruction in medieval liturgy, and for those with no prior experience who are willing to make rapid progress in the subject.

This course seeks to understand the basis upon which the Bible can be read "figuratively", within the context of an understanding of historical and temporal reality. The course makes use of exegesis (1 Corinthians 10, Genesis, and Ephesians 1), history of interpretation (both Christian and Jewish), philosophy of time, and the history of the philosophy of time as relevant to Christian theology and exegesis. The goal of the course is to outline a working framework for understanding how traditional figural referents in the Bible can be sustained in Christian reading of Scripture.

This seminar examines Meister Ekhart's mystical discours and its conceptual configuration as a 'contradictory monism' against the backdrop of the "Dioysian" tradition of Albert the Great (and Thomas Aquinas) and the current efflorescence of women's mysticism represented by Marguerite Porete

A seminar examining the Book of Isaiah with attention to its literary development, historical context(s), theological emphases, etc. Hebrew.

The course considers the various ways in which the medium of prophecy is transformed in the post-exilic period, particularly as this relates to the retrieval and extension of Isaianic traditions. The course will focus on the exilic and post-exilic editing of the book of Isaiah and the deployment of Isaiah traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament.

The prophetic book of Isaiah has been enormously influential in shaping Judaism and Christianity. The course considers the various ways in which the role of prophecy evolved in the post-exilic period, with Isaiah as a test case. The course will focus on the exilic and post-exilic expansion of the book of Isaiah and the deployment of Isaiah traditions in the Dead Sea Scrolls and the New Testament. Several questions will provide a central focus: How is authorship, whether written or oral, related to prophecy during the Persian and Greco-Roman eras? How do understandings of the figure of Isaiah change over time? What difference does it make whether Isaianic discourse is cited explicitly as opposed to alluded to implicitly? Which aspects of Isaiah made it particularly popular at Qumran and in the New Testament?

This course will combine close textual and exegetical analysis of the Hebrew Bible (Isaiah) with attention to methodology. These chapters of Isaiah are selected as they model well the transition from early literary-critical to form and redaction-critical exegesis, and newer canonical approaches. The time will be devoted to close reading of the Hebrew text informed by the spate of newer commentary treatments and secondary literature.

A critical exploration of the mystical, liturgical and pastoral theology of Evelyn Underhill, as she develops these in her novels and scholarly writings. Her thought will be examined in light of contemporary issues in spirituality, such as the status of the body, mysticism and social action, the subjectivization of mystical experiences, and the effect of socio-political structures on spirituality. Lectures, discussion, presentation, critical reflection paper.