Teresa Berger’s new book (published last summer) is @Worship: Liturgical Practices in Digital Worlds (Liturgy, Worship and Society Series. New York: Routledge, 2017). Her chapter “The Manifold Languages of Reconciliation in a Digital Age” appeared in Signs of Forgiveness, Paths of Conversion, Practice of Penance: A Reform that Challenges All, ed. James Puglisi et al (New York: Peter Lang Edition, 2017, 169-182). She presented a paper entitled “Sacraments in Cyberspace?” at the XXVI congress of Societas Liturgica in Leuven (Belgium) in August. Her post for the website MediaCommons Field Guide entitled “A View from the Pew” was published October 16.
Finally, she was interviewed for the inaugural episode of the new YDS Quadcast. Listen to the podcast.
Jeffrey Brillhart’s second book A World of Possibilities: Master Lessons in Organ Improvisation is forthcoming from Wayne Leupold editions in summer 2018. His first book, Breaking Free, is in wide use in Europe and the United States. On February 25-28, 2018, he will conduct The Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia in Kimmel Center, conducting works of Jean Rameau, J.S. Bach, and C.P.E. Bach.
Robert Tangeman Professor Emerita of Music History Margot Fassler reports that two books appeared in the last year, one a co-authored study, with Jeffery Hamburger, Eva Schlotheuber, and Susan Marti: Liturgical Life and Latin Learning at Paradies bei Soest, 1300-1425: Inscription and Illumination in the Choir Books of a North German Dominican Convent. 2 vols. (Munster: Aschendorff Verlag, 2016); and the other an edited volume, with Katie A.M Bugyis and Andrew B. Kraebel, Medieval Cantors and Their Craft: Music, Liturgy, and the Shaping of History (800-1500), York Medieval Press of Boydell and Brewer, 2017. Last summer she won a 1.6 million grant from Lilly Endowment, Inc. (co-PI with Mark Doerries) to support graduate student work with the Notre Dame Children’s Choir. She is President of the Medieval Academy of America, and was elected an honorary member of the American Musicological Society in the fall of 2016.
Fall 2017 has been particularly busy with keynote addresses in Reichenau, Germany; and at “A Sacrifice of Praise: Liturgy, Prayer, and Hymnody at the Center of Faith and Life,” the 42nd Patristic, Medieval, and Renaissance Studies Conference at Villanova University. She gave the Bernardo lecture at the University of Binghamton on the subject of “Cosmos and Creation in Hildegard of Bingen” (including scenes from the nearly finished digital model); and (via Skype) a lecture for the University of Basel. Fassler has been involved in several national and international projects and think-tanks, including “Rethinking Sacred Arts” at St. Vladimir’s Seminar, organized by Peter Bouteneff, Professor of Systematic Theology; “Developing Virtues in the Practice of Science,” organized by Celia Deane Drummond, Thomas Stapleford, and Darcia Narvez; and “Sound Memories: The Musical Past in Late-Medieval and Early Modern Europe (SoundMe)”under the direction of several European scholars, including Professors Karl Kügle of the University of Utrecht and Susan Rankin of Cambridge University. Fassler’s interview with Professor Bouteneff provides an example of her thoughts on sacred music as it informs the arts more generally. She is currently Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy at the University of Notre Dame, where she directs the program in sacred music.
Vasileios Marinis received tenure last spring. His new book, titled Death and the Afterlife in Byzantium The Fate of the Soul in Theology, Liturgy, and Art, was published by Cambridge University Press in early 2017. His article on the vision of the Last Judgment in the vita of Saint Niphon has just appeared in Dumbarton Oaks Papers.
Markus Rathey married Danielle Annett on September 16 in Marquand Chapel. Bryan Spinks presided, Teresa Berger and Peter Hawkins gave the readings, and Thomas Murray was at the Skinner organ. The reception was held at the home of Vasileios Marinis and Örgu Dalgic.
Bryan Spinks has a new book published in October: The Rise and Fall of the Incomparable Liturgy. The Book of Common Prayer 1559-1906 (SPCK London). His article “When the Present Became the Future: The Ambiguity behind the Consent in the Marriage Rite of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer” will appear in the Spring volume of the Journal of Anglican Studies. He has been invited to give the keynote address at the 40th Anniversary Conference of the Society of Liturgical Study in Mirfield, England in August 2018. His paper is entitled “Selective Liturgical Anamnesis: Authenticating the Present through an Imagined Past,” and will examine Conrad Noel’s reconstruction of the English Use to fit a Socialist program at Thaxted, Essex, and Divine Worship: The Missal of the Anglican Ordinariate.
Christian Wiman’s anthology Joy: 100 Poems features works from the twentieth century to the present day that explore the concept of joy in our time (Yale University Press). A review in The Atlantic is available online.