School Notes: Yale Divinity School
May/June 2007

Remembering two YDS biblical scholars

Two iconic figures in the pantheon of YDS biblical scholarship died in February, within two days of each other. On February 22, at his home in Guilford, Connecticut, New Testament scholar Paul Sevier Minear ’32PhD died at the age of 101; and on February 24 Old Testament scholar B. Davie Napier ’39BD, ’44PhD, died at Pilgrim Place in Claremont, California, at 91 years of age. (For the Yale Alumni Magazine report, see Milestones.) Napier, professor emeritus of Bible and ministry, joined the YDS faculty in 1949 before rising to the rank of associate professor and then becoming the Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation in 1956. He served as master of Calhoun College in 1964-65 and from 1980 to 1984. From 1975 to 1980 he was a fellow of the Yale Corporation. "Davie Napier was a particularly popular lecturer," said Brevard Childs, Sterling Professor Emeritus of Divinity. "For years, he had the big Old Testament course. . . . But he was mainly known for his preaching. His preaching was very, very imaginative and charismatic."

Minear, Winkley Professor Emeritus of Biblical Theology, joined the YDS faculty in 1956, where he taught until he retired in 1971. The author of more than 25 books and a member of the committee that produced the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible, his career spanned the better part of the twentieth century and established him as one of the world's leading New Testament scholars. Society of Biblical Literature executive director Kent Richards marveled at Minear's sheer stamina as a scholar. "So many people get to whatever the retirement age is and that is the end, . . . but Paul was deeply engaged for his entire long, wonderful life," said Richards. "A week before he died, Paul was sending out copies of lectures to people who he thought hadn't seen them."

Professor's hymn sung at National Prayer Breakfast

As the Edward and Ruth Cox Lantz Professor of Christian Communication, Thomas Troeger ’67 teaches preaching at Yale Divinity School. But Troeger is also a musician and poet with a love of science, and on February 1 his eclectic interests were on full display at the National Prayer Breakfast, when one of his many hymns was sung. At the breakfast, held in Washington, D.C., about 3,000 people -- including the president, first lady, several cabinet secretaries, and many members of Congress -- raised their voices in Troeger's hymn "Praise the Source of Faith and Learning," a hymn that honors God as the common source for all knowledge and faith.

Troeger, an accomplished flutist, learned that his hymn was being sung from an e-mail sent to him by Francis S. Collins ’74PhD, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute at the National Institutes of Health and the keynote speaker at the National Prayer Breakfast. Collins wrote, "In my remarks on February 1, I will try to explain the ways in which science can be a form of worship of God the creator. But for many of us, words are so much more powerful when coupled with music -- and your remarkable lyrics, sung to [the music of] 'Hyfrydol,' would be the perfect summation of what I want to convey." Said Troeger, "I'm thrilled about that because there are people from all kinds of persuasions there, and I'm very eager for people to see that faith and intellect go together very well. . . . This is not the first time I've had scientists respond to me."

Inquisitiveness, not inquisition, marks conference

Some of the country's leading evangelical Christians sat down with their counterparts on the more progressive end of the religious spectrum during a February 11-13 conference at the Divinity School that explored the relationship between religion and politics.

Among the participants in "Voices & Votes: Religious Convictions in the Public Square" were Ralph Reed, former head of the Christian Coalition; Richard Land, president of the Southern Baptist Convention Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission; and conservative writer and publisher Richard Viguerie; as well as Flo McAfee, White House Religious Liaison for President Clinton; and Serene Jones ’85MDiv, ’91PhD, feminist theologian and Titus Street Professor of Theology at YDS. Addressing such topics as "How Should Theology Shape Politics?" "Candidates Expressing Their Faith -- How Much is Too Much?" and "The Political Packaging of Religion," panelists were urged by Miroslav Volf, the director of the Yale Center for Faith & Culture, to show "generosity to those on the other side of the aisle" when engaging in potentially volatile discussions. Accordingly, civility and constructive dialogue ruled the day.

School of Drama
James Bundy, Dean
www.yale.edu/drama

Yale Drama Series to support emerging dramatists

A new playwriting competition, the David C. Horn Prize-Yale Drama Series, established by the Yale Repertory Theatre, Yale University Press, and the David Charles Horn Foundation, will support emerging playwrights by encouraging new dramatic works. New, unpublished, full-length plays will be considered for the competition, which carries a cash prize of $10,000, as well as publication of the manuscript by Yale University Press and a staged reading at the Yale Repertory Theatre. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee serves as the first judge of the Yale Drama Series and will announce the winner at a private ceremony at Lincoln Center. The Horn Foundation, which funds the series, was established in 2005 by Mr. Horn's widow, Francine. Mr. Horn was the publisher and CEO of Here & There, the preeminent international forecasting and reporting publication serving the fashion industry. In keeping with his lifetime commitment to the written word, the foundation seeks to support unpublished writers, particularly in the dramatic arts.

Yale Rep's Lulu keeps pace with Wedekind revivals

The Yale Repertory Theatre helped raise temperatures this spring with a revival of Frank Wedekind's notorious Lulu. Directed by YSD faculty member Mark Lamos (who also staged YRT's 2003 revival of The Taming of the Shrew), the production was a fresh take on this rarely produced classic. Working from translations of Wedekind's Lulu plays by Carl Mueller, Lamos and production dramaturg Drew Lichtenberg ’08MFA created a new adaptation using three extant texts: Pandora's Box -- A Monster Tragedy (Wedekind's first draft of the play), Erdgeist (Earth Spirit), and Die Buchse der Pandora (Pandora's Box). The Lulu plays have served as the basis of the Alban Berg opera Lulu (first staged in 1937) and the 1929 film Pandora's Box, directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst and starring silent-screen luminary Louise Brooks. With the Yale Rep production of Lulu, the recent Criterion DVD release of the Pabst film, and the hit Broadway production of Wedekind's Spring Awakening (as musicalized by Duncan Sheik and Steven Slater), the world is taking a moment to reassess the genius of Frank Wedekind, whose work was decades ahead of its time.

Learning the business of theater

Yale School of Drama theater management students have had an exceptional opportunity this year to learn from a man whose name has become synonymous with the Great White Way. Rocco Landesman ’65Dra, Broadway producer, president of Jujamcyn Theaters, and winner of more than a dozen Tony awards, shared his invaluable insights on the theater industry with YSD's students in a five-session module on commercial theater. Edward A. Martenson, adjunct professor of theater management, approached Landesman to teach the class because, he says, commercial theater "is an important subject area and because he's the perfect person to do it. He's an alum of our dramaturgy department and a remarkable judge of plays with respect to their cultural and aesthetic importance, he's trusted by talented artists, and he has a keen business judgment." As a theater owner-operator and as a producer, Martenson says, Landesman "stands for the idea that art and commerce can be combined."