The Religious Right: end of an era?
Either the era of the Religious Right is over, or
mainstream Christians should mount an aggressive challenge to make sure it is
over. Those were two viewpoints on the Religious Right offered, respectively,
by Washington Post columnist E. J. Dionne and former Colorado senator Gary Hart ’61BD, ’64LLB,
during the May 3-4 "Faith and Citizenship" conference at the Divinity
School. From the point of view of Dionne, the conference's keynote speaker, the
breakdown of the Religious Right is "part of a larger decline of a certain
style of ideological conservatism that reached high points in 1980 and 1994 and
collapsed in 2006." He observed, however, that the reported demise does not
signal a decline in evangelical Christianity but, rather, a new reformation
among evangelicals who are "trying to disentangle their great movement from a
political machine."
Hart, who was interviewed by Dionne at the conference's
closing luncheon, assailed what he termed the Religious Right's "rigid,
doctrinaire definition of Christianity" and threw out a challenge to the "traditional
church." "Where is the mainstream church for the last 20 years on standing up
to the Religious Right?" asked Hart. "The traditional church has to get more
engaged. . . . It simply can't let a small group of one wing of Protestantism
define what Christianity means."
Learning from the Lost Boys of Sudan
M. Jan Holton, the newly appointed assistant
professor of pastoral care and counseling, believes the Lost Boys of Sudan have
something to teach all of us. Holton has a special interest in using pastoral
theology as a lens for exploring intercultural aspects of trauma and recovery,
and much of her research has focused on the thousands of Sudanese boys orphaned
and forced from their villages as a result of wars in the late 1980s. "The
long-held tradition of care and obligation toward each other, passed down
through generations, has served them in particularly positive ways to mitigate
the effects of traumatic stress," says Holton, who joined the YDS faculty at
the beginning of the 2006-07 academic year. "This offers us a powerful
glimpse into the healing power of community, not only for the Lost Boys but for
all of us. . . . We look at pastoral care as a pastor taking care of a
congregation, and that is certainly a part of it, but it is also about who we
are as people, as communities, taking care of each other."
Historian elected to American Academy of Arts and
Sciences
Margot E. Fassler, the Tangeman Professor of Music
History with joint appointments at the Divinity School, the Institute of Sacred
Music, the School of Music, and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, was elected
in April as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Fassler is a
historian who works primarily with the musical and liturgical traditions of the
Latin Middle Ages and of the United States. Her subspecialties are liturgical
drama of the Middle Ages and Mariology. Her book Gothic Song: Victorine
Sequences and Augustinian Reform in Twelfth-Century Paris has received awards from both the
American Musicological Society and the Medieval Academy of America. She has
edited a volume on the divine office and has just completed a book on the cult
of the Virgin Mary at Chartres. She is currently preparing a book on the
twelfth-century theologian, exegete, and composer Hildegard of Bingen. Psalms
in Community, which
she co-edited, is being reprinted by the Society of Biblical Literature. Under
the auspices of a grant from the Lilly Endowment, Fassler continues to work
with congregations and practitioners to make videos of sacred music in its
liturgical contexts. Her most recent film is Joyful Noise: Psalms in
Community.
School of Drama
James Bundy, Dean
www.yale.edu/drama
Yale represented among Tony Award winners
The American Theatre Wing presented the 61st annual
Tony Awards in New York City on June 10, and Yale alumni were among the
winners. William Ivey Long ’75MFA won the Tony for best costume design for a
musical (Grey Gardens) ; Scott Pask ’97MFA won for best scenic design for a play (The
Coast of Utopia) ;
and David Hyde Pierce ’81BA was honored as the best actor in a musical (Curtains). Other Yale nominations included
Liev Schreiber ’92MFA for best actor; Santo Loquasto ’72MFA, Susan Hilferty ’80MFA,
and YSD faculty member Jane Greenwood, each for costume design; Christopher
Akerlind ’89MFA for lighting design for a musical; and Lynne Meadow ’71Dra and
Judith Hansen ’04Dra, both for revivals of a play. August Wilson's Radio
Golf, which had its
premiere at Yale Repertory Theatre in 2005, was nominated as best play.
YSD alum helps plan NEA forum on disabled artists
Many people with disabilities continue to face
significant barriers in achieving training and professional status in the arts,
leaving them underrepresented in the arts world. Nico Lang ’05MFA, manager of
community partnerships at Cornerstone Theater Company in Los Angeles, served on
the task force to plan the second National Forum on Careers in the Arts for
People with Disabilities. The task force, which included representatives from
arts, disability, research, philanthropy, and education organizations, met at
the National Endowment for the Arts in Washington, D.C., on April 19 and 20.
The National Forum will convene in August 2008 at the
Kennedy Center in Washington and will bring together 250 people from many
fields to review and evaluate progress concerning educational and career
opportunities since the first forum took place in 1998; identify obstacles and
strategies to overcome them; and develop a strategic plan to further advance
arts careers.
Dean honored by Connecticut critics
The Connecticut Critics Circle honored YSD dean James
Bundy ’95MFA for his artistic leadership of Yale Repertory Theatre by
presenting him with the Tom Killen Award on June 4, in an event at the
Goodspeed Opera House in East Haddam. The Connecticut Critics Circle, an
organization of theater reviewers from around the state, presents the Tom
Killen Award annually to recognize outstanding contributions to Connecticut
theater.
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