The Art of Ministry, the Ministry of Art? 28 MARCH Session

March Sessions: Changes and Updates

A few changes to our upcoming March sessions - we are very excited for the talks ahead!

7 March, 5pm - 'The Art of Rhetoric?'

Robert Smith (University of York, Centre for Medieval Studies) on patristic language

Simon Crouch (University of York, Evangelium) on Aquinas and aesthetics 

28 March, 6pm  - 'The Art of Ministry, the Ministry of Art?' 

Marjorie Coughlan (Open University, York Art History Collaborations) on the art of Bishop Giles

Katherine Hinzman (University of Oxford, University of York) on the 'theology of art' of Edward Burne-Jones

These sessions will take place in the Upper Room of St. Wilfrid's York. Please contact Katherine Hinzman (kmh538@york.ac.uk) with any questions and for further details. 

After each session, we will convene in The Eagle and Child, High Petergate, for drinks, food and further discussion!

Special Lecture and March Seminar

28 February 2019: SPECIAL LECTURE by Andre Gushurst-Moore (Second Headmaster, Worth School) Glory in All Things - An Exclusive Book Debut 

‘Upper Room’, St. Wilfrid’s Church, Duncombe Place YO1 7ED

28th February, 2019, 18.00-19:30

(N.B. The Upper Room is located upstairs through a door in the furthest back of the small car park adjacent to the church.)

Dinner at Cote Brasserie, Low Petergate, will follow at 19.30. To reserve your place at the dinner, contact  Katherine Hinzman at

:

kmh538@york.ac.uk

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Announcing our first March session!

7 March: The Art of Rhetoric?

5pm, Upper Room St. Wilfrid's York

Robert Smith (York)

Adam Sammut (York)

Titles forthcoming

Contact Katherine Hinzman (kmh538@york.ac.uk) if you have any questions or require any further information!

February Seminar and Special Lecture

What a pleasure to host last night's panel on 'The Language of Grace'! The talks of Dr. Elizabeth Powell (Durham) and Katherine Hinzman (York) respectively on the poetics of David Jones and religious art through the ages brought out some fruitful discussion at the question and answer, and after, at the pub! So thankful for the presenters, particularly our guest Dr. Powell, all the attendees, and everyone who helped to make this happen. (Photos courtesy Simon Crouch)

Looking ahead to our next talk, the Special Lecture given by Andre Gushurst-Moore (Worth School).  Please contact Katherine Hinzman (kmh538@york.ac.uk) for further details, and to book your place at the dinner after the lecture.

February Seminar Update

There has been a change to our programme for the session on 6 February: instead of Brother Isaac Wharton (Blackfriars, Oxford), we will have Katherine Hinzman (Oxford, York) presenting on 'Full of Grace? The Desire of Art for God' alongside Elizaebeth Powell (Durham). Please see further details on the poster below.

The talk will be followed by a trip to The Eagle and Child on High Petergate, for drinks, food and continued discussion. We hope to see you all there!

Upcoming Seminars: February

Catholicism and the Arts York was so pleased by the presentations, turn-out and discussion of our December session, 'On Hallowed Grounds? Understanding Medieval Church Architecture' - many thanks especially to our presenters Elizabeth Biggs and Karl Kinsella and to all who attended!

We are already looking forward to our next sessions! We will be taking a break for the remainder of December and for January to celebrate the holiday season, and then will come back full-force with two sessions in February! At the beginning of the month we welcome two panelists for our regularly scheduled early-month session (on a Wednesday, rather than a Thursday), and at the end of the month, we are so pleased to be hosting Andre Gushurst Moore from the Benedictine institution, Worth School, who will be debuting his new book, Glory in All Things (see his previous publication, The Common Mind, below)!  Looking forward to all these talks and those to follow, at the usual time and place - 6pm, Upper Room, St. Wilfrid's York. 

6 February 2019: The Language of Grace? Literature and the Theme of Grace in the Novel (Tentative title - more information to follow!)

Dr. Elizabeth R. Powell (Centre for Catholic Studies,Durham)

Brother Isaac Wharton (Blackfriars, University of Oxford)

28 February 2019: SPECIAL LECTURE by Andre Gushurst-Moore (Second Headmaster, Worth School) Glory in All Things - An Exclusive Book Debut 

‘Upper Room’, St. Wilfrid’s Church, Duncombe Place YO1 7ED

6 and 28th February, 2019, 18.00-19:30

(N.B. The Upper Room is located upstairs through a door in the furthest back of the small car park adjacent to the church.)

For more information or inquiries, contact us at:

kmh538@york.ac.uk

Upcoming Seminars: November and December

8 November - A Question of Faith?  Politics and Literary Catholicism in the 20th Century'

6pm, Upper Room, St. Wilfrid's York

Matthew Feldman (Norwegian Study Centre, York, London): Christian/Integral humanism and (very) late modernism in the non-fiction prose of Thomas Merton

Karl O'Hanlon (Leeds): This is a Catholic Country: Desmond FitzGerald and Catholicism in Irish Literary Culture

6 December - On Hallowed Grounds? Understanding Church Architecture in the Medieval Period 

5.30pm, Upper Room, St. Wilfrid's York

Dr. Elizabeth Biggs (York): Faith and a New Cloister in Westminster Palace on the Eve of the Reformation

Dr. Karl Kinsella (Oxford): Reading the Medieval Church: Liturgical Commentaries and Architecture

Previous Seminars

2018-9 Academic Year

6 December 2018 - 'On Hallowed Grounds? Understanding Medieval Church Architecture'
Elizabeth Biggs (York): 'Faith and a New Cloister in Westminster Palace on the Eve of the Reformation'
Karl Kinsella (York, Oxford): 'Reading the Medieval Church: Liturgical Commentaries and Architecture'

8 November 2018 - 'A Question of Faith? Politics and Literary Catholicism in the 20th Century'
Matthew Feldman (Norwegian Study Centre, York, London): 'Christian/Integral humanism and (very) late modernism in the non-fiction prose of Thomas Merton'
Karl O'Hanlon (Leeds): 'This is a Catholic Country: Desmond FitzGerald and Catholicism in Irish Literary Culture'

2017-8 Academic Year:

12 July, 2018 - 'How is Holy Space Symbolised in Christian Art?'
Madeline Salzman (York): 'More than Decoration: Angels as Indicators of Sacred Space'
Claudia Wardle (York): 'Devotional Frames in a Ferrarese Book of Hours'

29 May, 2018 - 'What is "Real Presence"? Religion and Drama'
Philip Crispin (Hull): 'Passion Play: Staging York's The Conspiracy and Christ Before Annas and Caiaphas'
Fionnoula Tonning (Bergen): 'Shakespeare and the Drama of Reform: Theatre and Reformation in Sixteenth Century England'

3 May, 2018 - 'The Loaded Image? Marian Imagery through the Ages'
Matthew Mills (Oxford)
Katherine Hinzman (Oxford, York): 'Marian Maids: Edward Burne-Jones's Artistic Theology of Incarnation'

8 March, 2018 - 'Old and New Visions of the Cross?'
Megan Henvey (York): 'Medieval Irish High Crosses'
Anna Svendsen (York): 'Rethinking the Frontispiece to David Jones: WWI Memoir In Parenthesis as a "Crucifixion" Image'

21 February, 2018 - 'Conflicting Identities? Catholicism, Culture and Britishness in 19th and 20th century Prose and Practice'
Martin Potter (York): 'Evelyn Waugh, Muriel Sparks and David Jones: Three Twentieth Century Writers on Catholic Identity'
Fr. Richard Duffield (St. Wilfrid's, York Oratory):  '"What then does Dr. Newman mean?" Twentieth Century Writer's Reactions to John Henry Newman'

2 November, 2017 - Inaugural Seminar: 'How to Represent "The End"?'
Tom Bromwell (York): 'Death is Not the End: Charles Sim's Last Paintings'
Erik Tonning (Norwegian Study Centre): '"To think perhaps it won't all have been for nothing!" Eschatological Ambiguity in Endgame'

March Seminar: Old and New Visions of the Cross?

‘Old and New Visions of the Cross?  Seeing the Crucifixion in Medieval Irish High Crosses and the WWI Painting of David Jones.’

Megan Henvey (York): Medieval Irish High Crosses

Anna Svendsen (York): ‘Rethinking the Frontispiece to David Jones: WWI Memoir In Parenthesis as a “Crucifixion” Image’

‘Upper Room’, St. Wilfrid’s Church, Duncombe Place YO1 7ED

8 March, 2018, 18.00-19:30

(N.B. The Upper Room is located upstairs through a door in the furthest back of the small car park adjacent to the church.)

For more information or inquiries, contact us at:

catholicismandtheartsyork@gmail.com

February Seminar: 'Conflicting Identities? Catholicism, Culture and Britishness in 19th and 20th Century Prose and Practice'

Dr. Martin Potter (York):  ‘Evelyn Waugh, Muriel Sparks and David Jones: Three Twentieth-Century Writers on Catholic Identity’

Fr. Richard Duffield (St. Wilfrid’s, York Oratory): ‘“What then does Dr. Newman mean?” Twentieth-Century Writers’ Reactions to John Henry Newman’

John Henry Newman reading

‘Upper Room’, St. Wilfrid’s Church, Duncombe Place YO1 7ED

21 February, 2018, 18:00-19:30

(N.B. The Upper Room is located upstairs through a door in the furthest back of the small car park adjacent to the church.)

For more information or inquiries, contact us at:

catholicismandtheartsyork@gmail.com

Beginning with 'The End': Representations of Apocalypse and the Inauguration of 'Catholicism and the Arts'

Last night, we began with 'The End.'

Samuel Beckett's stage set for Endgame 

Charles Sim's A Crowd of Small Souls in Flame

Speakers Tom Bromwell (University of York, History of Art) and Erik Tonning (Norwegian Study Centre), it could be said, have quite literally 'set the stage' for subsequent Catholicism and the Arts York seminars! To the question, 'How to represent "The End"?', the presenters each brought forward examples different not only in material and nature but in historical origin; and yet, together they spoke with extraordinary resonance on the complex issue of 'ends' that artist Charles Sims and playwright Samuel Beckett respectively confronted with the intertwined language of art and religion.  Bromwell explained that, for Sims, his later freshly abstracted work was a dramatic break with his previous, sublimely fantastical work on fairies; only shortly before his own suicide, it represented his coming-to-terms with the Catholic faith he had converted to during the Great War and his consequent ideas of life beyond life - a fragmentation of the conventional 'academic' representation he had pursued earlier in his career.  Tonning recounted the drama of Beckett's Endgame, exemplary not only for its use of the theological language the playwright deployed in other plays, but for the 'eschatological ambiguity' that made direct references to the Apocalypse in its (failed) attempts to create an ultimate ending for the world.  Ultimately, the presentations, so vastly different, underlined this sense of the "not yet" that Tonning spoke of in Beckett's continuously unfinished game of endings; that, in Sim's work, was reflected in the stark abstraction contrasting his earlier career, that violently opened the way for a purgatorial Last Judgement that is at once glimpsed and shrouded behind the fragmented forms of the body and flames of highly material, and yet highly incomprehensible, colour. 

I believe this "not yet" poses yet more questions: questions that grow larger and wind deeper into the very heart of our world and our faith; stimulating explorations, representations and yet more questions as the cultural arts continually intersect with the lived religion of Catholicism through and over ages.  This "not yet" will therefore be only the beginning of the questions we seek to pose and - if not to directly answer - to complicate and ponder over the course of this seminar series.  We hope to see you, to hear your own questions and contributions, soon in the next panel discussion. Watch this space for updates!


-Katherine Hinzman

Catholicism and The Arts Inaugural Meeting 2 November: How to Represent the 'End'?

4.30-6.00 pm, 2 November: How to Represent the 'End'? 

Tom Bromwell (York): ‘Death is Not the End: Charles Sim’s Last Paintings’ Erik Tonning (Norwegian Study Centre): ‘“To think perhaps it won't all have been for nothing!” Eschatological ambiguity in Endgame.’

Charles Sims, Crowds of Small Souls in Flame, 1927.

Please join us Thursday, 2nd November, at 4.30pm for the first lecture in our 2017-8 Catholicism and the Arts Lecture series.  We shall be meeting in the Upper Room of St. Wilfrid's Church, Duncombe Place, York, YO1 7EF.  The Upper Room is located upstairs through a door in the furthest back of the small car park adjacent to the church.  Please contact catholicismandtheartsyork@gmail.com if you have any questions.

This talk will be followed by (optional) attendance at the sung All Souls Requiem mass in the church and dinner/drinks at The Eagle and Child.