Christianity & the Arts

Module code: 7AATC999
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 60
Semester:  summer session 1;  summer session 2; 
Teaching pattern: The dissertation is to be on a topic chosen by the candidate with advice from his or her supervisor, and written under supervision.
 
Assessment:  coursework 
Assessed by 1 x dissertation of up to 15,000 words

For a full module description and further information, please see the module page on the Department of Theology & Religious Studies website.
 

Module code: 7AATC411
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 40
Semester:  Full-year 
Assessment:  coursework 
Assessed by 2 x 5,000-word essays.

The module will teach students about the sustained and rich discussion of the theme of the beautiful in the Western Church, a discussion which runs through every century of its history and has often provoked fierce contention (as in the Reformation). It will introduce students to this tradition, tracing its debts to classical models of the relationsihp between beauty and goodness (especially in the works of Plotinus), through the medieval discussions of beauty as a transcendental (especially in the work of Aquinas), to the theological influence on philosophical aesthetics in the 18th and 19th centuries (including the observation of a distinctively British tradition in Coleridge, Ruskin, Hopkins and others). It will conclude with the major works in the area of theological aesthetics that have been produced since the 20th century (Jacques Maritain, David, Jones, Hans Urs von Balthasar, Davie Bentley Hart, Rowan Williams).

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/trs/modules/level7/7aatc411.aspx

Module code: 7AATC413
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: 


Assessment:  coursework 
Assessed by 1 x 5,000-word essay

This module will look at how art has acted as a means of expressing and developing religious ideas; a way to make theological points that has its own status alongside the academic treatise, the sermon, or the ecclesiastical pronouncement. It will investigate how pictures have both transmitted and innovated on religious tradition, and will ask whether there are distinctive things that the visual arts can achieve which other modes of theological communication cannot manage so easily (if at all).

NB There are limited places available on this module due to its taking place in part at the National Gallery, so if you select this module on your module registration form, please submit an alternative choice.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/trs/modules/level7/7aatc413.aspx

Module code: 7AATC414
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: Taught via one two-hour class per week (10 weeks)
Assessment:  coursework 
Assessed by 1 x 5,000-word essay

Through seminars students will explore the ways in which key thinkers/literary texts have sought to make sense of, and come to terms with, the role of Christianity in a period of intense doubt and scepticism. Students will explore such matters largely in an ethical context. The module will be essentially structured around discussion based on the reading of the texts set. Students will have a chance to present material for discussion by the group.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/trs/modules/level7/7aatc414.aspx

Module code: 7AATC416
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 2 (spring) 
Teaching pattern: TBD
Assessment:  coursework 
One 5,000-word essay (100%)

In recent years, art and religion have frequently been cast as mortal enemies, with 'modern art' playing the part of the villain, spitting—or worse in the case of Andres Serrano's Piss Christ (1987)—on the symbols and ideals of religion. In this module we will avoid erecting simple binaries between modern art and religion, instead seeking to understand the ways in which each has opened up new understandings and trajectories for the other, sometimes by virtue of tension and controversy. Throughout this module, we will make a special effort to take advantage of the unique resources of London's museums and religious spaces, from Tate Modern and Tate Britain, to such nearby churches as St. Stephen's Walbrook and St. Martin-in-the-Fields.

Module code: 7AATC415
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 1 (autumn) 
Assessment:  coursework 
Assessed by 1 x 5,000-word essay

This module engages with a series of literary texts across historical periods from the perspective of both their theological content and contexts. It therefore offers an analytical, hermeneutical approach to both the history of theological literature (Augustine, Eckhart, Dante), and to theologically related literatures (Hölderlin, Paul Celan and Yves Bonnefoy), as well as to the hermeneutics of language use in specifically theological frameworks (Pauline texts). In this module we will further the study of both the implicit and explicit understandings of language, its possibilities and limitations, in different theological contexts and genres.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/trs/modules/level7/7aatc415.aspx

Module code: 7AATC412
Credit level: 7
Credit value: 20
Semester:  Semester 1 (autumn) 
Assessment:  coursework 
Assessed by 1 x 5,000-word essay

This module will look closely at the ways in which different Christian environments and needs have helped to foster particular kinds of art. This will require art-historical and church-historical input; a knowledge of the history of religious ideas and devotional practices, of the aspirations of patrons as well as of popular piety, and of how all these things shaped artistic commissions and objects. 

NB There are limited places available on this module due to its taking place in part at the National Gallery, so if you select this module on your module registration form, please submit an alternative choice.

http://www.kcl.ac.uk/artshums/depts/trs/modules/level7/7aatc412.aspx