Applicants choose one morning seminar and one afternoon seminar per week. Seminar descriptions are also avalible as a PDF.
Week 1: 4 August - 10 August
Morning seminars (9.00am-12.00pm)
Creation and Creators, Medieval into Modern - Dr Alicia Smith
This seminar will explore Christian creativity and creators, beginning in the Middle Ages and tracing how ideas, images, and themes from that period still speak powerfully in our own modern day. We'll look at the kinds of creativity which animated the medieval Church's buildings, spirituality, worship, and teaching, and alongside that we'll look at the ways Christian (and other) creators today continue to respond to, learn from, and struggle with that period of Christian history. Our material for discussion will include medieval art, drama, architecture, poetry, liturgy, and more, and we'll engage with a variety of modern responses and replies.
Literary Creativity: Poetry and the Bible - Dr Edward Clarke
The Bible contains its own sublime poetry and has provided a major stimulus for poetry in English. On this course you will explore the poetry books of the Old Testament in relation to poems made out of them, as we look initially at versions of the Psalms composed from the sixteenth century to the present day, and then explore Blake’s engravings of the Book of Job. We will also consider the Bible in general as the single most important source text for English poetry, considering its influence on Shakespeare, Herbert, Vaughan, Milton, Hopkins, Eliot, Yeats, and Maya Angelou, among others.
Insights from Psychology into the Limits and Bounds of Human Creativity - Dr Emily Burdett
The degree to which humans engage in creativity, and the variety displayed within individuals as well as across cultures and generations, is truly astounding. We see ingenuity in art, literature, technology, bodily ornamentation, science, problem-solving and even in how we worship and engage with God. In this seminar we will explore various dimensions of what creativity is. We will engage with recent scientific discoveries on how creativity develops within us, in societies, and across generations. We will also discuss differences in creative processes in humans, other species, AI and in God. In addition, there will be time to explore evidence-based ways to nurture creativity as well as to engage and reflect on the practice of being creative from a theological and psychological perspective.
Afternoon seminars (1.30pm-4.30pm)
Therapeutic Creativity as Co-Creation with God - Revd Dr Anne Holmes
During these seminars, we will consider the theology and psychology of creativity and raise certain questions: What does it mean to be creative? When we allow ourselves to be creative, are we joining in with God's ongoing creation? What is the therapeutic value of creativity? In what ways can regular engagement in the creative arts contribute to ongoing self-care? What is the connection between creative repair and the development of resilience? Does it make a difference whether we practise it alone or with others? Is there a link between grief and creativity? Can we see creative repair as spiritual discipline? Participants will be encouraged to reflect on their own experience of reading, writing, painting, drawing, looking at art, being involved in music and theatre, whether as active participants or appreciators.
A Christian Appraisal of Creativity, Creation and Technology - Dr Michael Burdett
One of the most significant powers theologians and philosophers argue is shared between human beings and the divine is the ability to create. Some contend that human creativity and the imagination are central to understanding how human beings are in the image of God. Much of this discussion focuses on creativity within the arts. Often overlooked in these discussions is how technology fits into human and divine creativity and creation. This course draws on thinkers such as Phillip Hefner, J. R. R. Tolkien and Mary Shelley, to explore whether and how technology exhibits the kind of creativity and creation shared with the divine.
Week 2: 11 - 17 August
Morning seminars (9.00am-12.00pm)
African Pentecostalism and Spirit-led Entrepreneurial Creativity - Dr Chris Wadibia
Pentecostalism is the world’s fastest growing Christian denomination. The Pew Research Centre, a leading authority on religion-related research, estimates that by 2050 over 60% of the world’s Christians will live in Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America. The West is no longer the global centre of the Christian religion. One factor contributing to these shifts in global Christian dynamics is the growing number of Pentecostal churches in the Majority World adopting entrepreneurial ways of delivering religious services and building financial capacity in order to meet the needs of their worshippers and wider communities. This seminar introduces students to the dynamic relationship between African Pentecostalism and Spirit-led entrepreneurship in order to showcase the intersectional relationship between human creativity and interpretations of Christian theology in the Majority World.
Creativity in Peacemaking and Peacebuilding - Revd Dr Liz Carmichael MBE
This seminar aims to reflect on the nature of peace and how it is made and built, taking account of sources ranging from Isaiah through the New Testament to the present Global Peace Index. We will explore the motivations and resources for peacemaking and peacebuilding in Scripture and Christian tradition, and draw on the spirituality of Christian peacemakers past and present including St Francis and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. We reflect on themes of reconciliation, justice, truth, repentance, forgiveness, encounter and dialogue. Can we creatively build peace at every level, with social cohesion, in a sustainable environment, across the world today?
The Creative Consequences of Condemnation - Revd Dr Nicholas Turner
The Lord’s castigation and punishment of the children of Israel may seem to us harsh and often cruel. And yet it stimulated a growing understanding of moral responsibility, which in turn led to the gift of Law, to the good news about Sin, and the promise of forgiveness. It is a complex and unexpected story, how those stern words brought us joy and hope. By careful study of biblical texts, and with some non-technical discussion of agency and free will, we shall follow the deepening vision of what it is to be Human, through the early Old Testament and into the New.
Afternoon seminars (1.30pm-4.30pm)
Christian Theologies of Beauty: From Ancient Near East to Non-Fungible Tokens - Revd Dr Jonathan Brant
This seminar will survey and constructively engage with different understandings of the relation between human creativity, beauty and the divine, between art and worship. Moments, movements, and creative artforms considered might include: the culture of the Ancient Near East (ANE) encountered in scriptural texts; the Church Fathers and iconography; the theology and motivations of Iconoclasm; the paintings and architecture of Renaissance humanism; Modernism and modern arts including film; and our present moment of digital representation, AI-generated images, and a global market in Non-Fungible Tokens (NFTs). Participants will develop knowledge, critical skills and tools that will aid their own appreciation of beauty and the arts, and would also be of value for scholarship, preaching or leading worship.
Storytelling in the Biblical Tradition - Revd Dr Suse McBay
From Genesis to Revelation, the stories the Bible tells are creatively told and retold to invoke new meaning and engage with different social situations. This seminar will explore the character and shape of that creative retelling, looking at examples of how the biblical tradition brings in tales from its Ancient Near Eastern setting, recrafts its own stories throughout the history of Israel and the Church, as well as creatively thinking about how we might do that within our own context today.
