Welcome to the Society for Critical Imagination’s weblog! This will be an additional space for connection and conversation outside of and beyond our weekly meetings. It is our hope that questions that don’t get raised in our meetings might find special attention here. If you are unfamiliar with the society and just getting to know it, please read on and you will find our creed, a list of potential topics for discussion and our semester schedule.

Creed:
This club exists to promote a healthy discussion of issues pertaining to the arts (taken in the broadest sense) and the current cultural discourse from a distinctively Christ-centered theological perspective. Believing that such engagement offers more possibilities than problems, we seek to provide an atmosphere of free and rigorous inquiry and at the same time encourage creative modes of response. In this way, we have committed ourselves to helping each other develop a higher degree of criticality in a Christian discernment of the world at large.

 

Potential Topics:
Modern and Contemporary Art:
Influential artists, key episodes from recent art history, diverse voices in art theory, intersections between art and other academic disciplines/interests (e.g. politics, psychoanalysis, cultural theory, globalization, etc.)

Theological Aesthetics:
Philosophical categories of, theological art criticism?, ethical models of Christian consumership, theological voices of wisdom, etc.

Other:
Philosophy, Film, Popular Music, Cultural Theory, Community Engagement

 

Schedule:
Sept. 4: Welcome and Introduction

Sept. 11: Jonathan Gillette – The art of Jeff Koons

Sept. 18: Taylor Worley – “Reparations and Conversations: A Future for Contemporary Art in Theological Reflection”

Sept. 25: Dr. Greg Thornbury – The theology of Bob Dylan

Oct. 2: Jonathan Gillette – “Art and Pyschoanalysis”

Oct. 9: Taylor Worley – A Contemporary Memento Mori: the art of Damien Hirst

Oct. 16: Dr. Hal Poe – Science and Imagination in the poetry of Edgar Allen Poe

Oct. 23: Ben Glass/Mark Inman – tba

Oct. 30: Dr. Brad Green – Augustine on Aesthetics

Nov. 6: Alan Knox – tba

Nov. 13: Jonathan Gillette/Taylor Worley – Reflections on the New York artworld

Nov. 27: Joe Garner – The Unbelievable Prophecies of David Bazan

Dec. 4: Ben Dockery – tba

Thanks for your interest!