This page is meant to be a resource for scholars teaching in the fields of theology, religious studies, art, and art history. If you have developed a course or assignments that deal with the intersections between art and theological/religious studies, please send your Word or pdf files to Kimberly Vrudny (kjvrudny@stthomas.edu) for inclusion here.

Aesthetics
W. Alan Smith
Florida Southern University

Christianity and the Arts
W. Alan Smith
Florida Southern University

Theology and the Arts
Scott Robinson
Eastern University
Of the course, Scott Robinson at Eastern University writes, "The purpose of this course is to explore the visual, musical and literary arts from the standpoint of the world¹s faiths, examine the place of the arts in human activity and religious thought, become acquainted with the basic theological underpinnings of the arts and culture, test assumptions about the value and significance of the arts, and inquire into how the sacred is present in the work of artists."

Theology of Beauty
Kimberly Vrudny
University of St. Thomas
Is beauty simply "in the eye of the beholder," or is it something more objective? Is it possible that beauty is a way through which God reveals God's self in the created order? This course examines a variety of objective and subjective views of beauty from the works of philosophers (e.g., Plato, Kant, and Weil) and Christian theologians (e.g., Augustine, John of Damascus, Thomas Aquinas, Tillich, Barth, and Balthasar). It also explores the implications of these insights about beauty for the arts. We will consider especially icons, medieval manuscript illustrations of Mary, documentary photographs, and films. As a final project, students will articulate their own theology of beauty through an interpretation of a selected work of art.

Theological Aesthetics
Mark S. Burrows
Andover Newton Theological School
What is beauty, or the beautiful? Does such a question have anything to do with theology, faith, ministry, or even the quotidian tedium and urgencies of life, properly speaking? Is this necessarily a theological matter, properly speaking? Or, in what manner might it become such a matter? Are such questions ones that come to us with an abstracted neutrality, or are they not always bound by culture and tradition, memory and hope, desire and fear – and thus woven into a wider fabric of human experience than we alone can ever know?  Is the question of beauty, in other words, one that always comes to us an ethical claim with real and “worldly” implications, reminding us that the aesthetic is both real in its transcendental referent as well as being inevitably and inherently social and political?

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