Routledge Studies in Theology, Imagination and the Arts
About the Book Series
What have imagination and the arts to do with theology? For much of the modern era, the answer has been 'not much'. It is precisely this deficit that this series seeks to redress. For, whatever role they have or have not been granted in the theological disciplines, imagination and the arts are undeniably bound up with how we as human beings think, learn and communicate, engage with and respond to our physical and social environments and, in particular, our awareness and experience of that which transcends our own creatureliness. The arts are playing an increasingly significant role in the way people come to terms with the world; at the same time, artists of many disciplines are showing a willingness to engage with religious or theological themes. A spate of publications and courses in many educational institutions has already established this field as one of fast-growing concern. This series taps into a burgeoning intellectual concern on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond. The peculiar inter-disciplinarity of theology, and the growing interest in imagination and the arts in many different fields of human concern, afford the opportunity for a series that has its roots sunk in varied and diverse intellectual soils, while focused around a coherent theological question: How are imagination and the arts involved in the shaping and reshaping of our humanity as part of the creative and redemptive purposes of God, and what roles do they perform in the theological enterprise? Many projects within the series have particular links to the work of the Institute for Theology, Imagination and the Arts in the University of St Andrews, and to the Duke Initiatives in Theology and the Arts at Duke University.
Holman Hunt and the Light of the World in Oxford
1st Edition
Edited
By Markus Bockmuehl
November 12, 2024
This book provides an up-to-date introduction to the religious and artistic story behind The Light of the World by William Holman Hunt. Created in the mid-nineteenth century, it is often said to be the most widely exhibited work of art in history and remains one of the most widely known Christian ...
Theological Anthropology in Mozart’s La clemenza di Tito: Sin, Grace, and Conversion
1st Edition
By Steffen Lösel
January 29, 2024
This book asks what theological messages theologically educated Catholics in late-eighteenth-century Prague might have perceived in Mozart’s late opera seria La clemenza di Tito. The book’s thesis is two-fold: first, that Catholics might have heard the opera’s advocacy of enlightened absolutism as ...
Transforming Christian Thought in the Visual Arts: Theology, Aesthetics, and Practice
1st Edition
Edited
By Sheona Beaumont, Madeleine Emerald Thiele
January 09, 2023
This volume explores how the visual arts are presenting and responding to Christian theology and demonstrates how modern and contemporary artists and artworks have actively engaged in conversation with Christianity. Modern intellectual enquiry has often been reluctant to engage theology as an ...
Space, Time, and Presence in the Icon: Seeing the World with the Eyes of God
1st Edition
By Clemena Antonova
December 13, 2021
This book contributes to the re-emerging field of 'theology through the arts' by proposing a way of approaching one of the most challenging theological concepts - divine timelessness - through the principle of construction of space in the icon. One of the main objectives of this book is to discuss ...
Protestant Aesthetics and the Arts
1st Edition
Edited
By Sarah Covington, Kathryn Reklis
September 30, 2021
The Reformation was one of the defining cultural turning points in Western history, even if there is a longstanding stereotype that Protestants did away with art and material culture. Rather than reject art and aestheticism, Protestants developed their own aesthetic values, which Protestant ...
The Poet as Believer: A Theological Study of Paul Claudel
1st Edition
By Aidan Nichols, O.P.
September 30, 2021
This is the first comprehensive study of the theological significance of Paul Claudel, a poet frequently cited by literary-minded theologians in Europe and theologically-minded poets (such as von Balthasar, de Lubac and Eliot). His writing combines cosmology and history, Bible and metaphysics, ...
Baptized Imagination: The Theology of George MacDonald
1st Edition
By Kerry Dearborn
June 30, 2021
The imagination has been called, 'the principal organ for knowing and responding to disclosures of transcendent truth'. This book probes the theological sources of the imagination, which make it a vital tool for knowing and responding to such disclosures. Kerry Dearborn approaches areas of ...
Christian Theology and Tragedy: Theologians, Tragic Literature and Tragic Theory
1st Edition
Edited
By Kevin Taylor, Giles Waller
June 30, 2021
Drawing together leading scholars from both theological and literary backgrounds, Christian Theology and Tragedy explores the rich variety of conversations between theology and tragedy. Three main areas are examined: theological readings of a range of tragic literature, from plays to novels and the...
Faithful Performances: Enacting Christian Tradition
1st Edition
By Steven R. Guthrie, Trevor A. Hart
June 30, 2021
The metaphor of performance has been applied fruitfully by anthropologists and other social theorists to different aspects of human social existence, and furnishes a potentially helpful model in terms of which to think theologically about Christian life. After an introductory editorial chapter ...
Memento Mori in Contemporary Art: Theologies of Lament and Hope
1st Edition
By Taylor Worley
June 30, 2021
This book explores how four contemporary artists—Francis Bacon, Joseph Beuys, Robert Gober, and Damien Hirst—pursue the question of death through their fraught appropriations of Christian imagery. Each artist is shown to not only pose provocative theological questions, but also to question the ...
Shakespeare, Theology, and the Unstaged God
1st Edition
By Anthony D. Baker
March 31, 2021
While many scholars in Shakespeare and Religious Studies assume a secularist viewpoint in their interpretation of Shakespeare’s works, there are others that allow for a theologically coherent reading. Located within the turn to religion in Shakespeare studies, this book goes beyond the claim that ...
Living Theodrama: Reimagining Theological Ethics
1st Edition
By Wesley Vander Lugt
December 12, 2019
Living Theodrama is a fresh, creative introduction to theological ethics. Offering an imaginative approach through dialogue with theatrical theory and practice, Vander Lugt demonstrates a new way to integrate actor-oriented and action-oriented approaches to Christian ethics within a comprehensive ...