Singers, artists, journalists and others will share insights into popular music and religious identity during a semester-long lecture series at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
The "Like a Prayer" series, part of the Religion and the Arts and Contemporary Culture Program financed by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation, will meet on select Tuesdays and Thursdays in the Art Room on the ground floor of Vanderbilt Divinity School. The talks were organized by a divinity school class, "Popular Music and Religious Identity."
All the lectures are free and open to the public and begin at 7 p.m. at the divinity school at 411 21st Ave. S. Selected sessions will be posted as podcasts at www.vanderbilt.edu/news.
"For students who are going into the ministry, it matters whether their parishioners listen to Kenny Chesney or rap music while driving to church," said John McClure, the class instructor and Charles G. Finney Professor of Homiletics. "We’re going to take a broad look at how the music all around us contains the urge for transcendence and human transformation."
The schedule:
Tuesday, Sept. 16: Dave Perkins, "Hell Yeah! Pairing Southern Religion and Punk/Postmodern Aesthetics in the Construction of Southern Gothic Music"
Thursday, Sept. 18: Sherry Cothran, "From Songs to Sermons: Listening to the Stories of Women of the Hebrew Bible"
Tuesday, Sept. 23: John Styll, "The World of Contemporary Christian Music: An Insider’s View"
Tuesday, Oct. 7: Juan M. Floyd-Thomas, "’It’s Like God is Testing Me: Approaches for Researching Religion and Hip-hop"
Tuesday, Oct. 14: Bill Friskics-Warren, "Something Like Sanctified: Spirituality in Contemporary Pop Music"
Thursday, Oct. 23: Jars of Clay members Steve Mason and Charlie Reid, with Julie Lee and Brian Ritchey, "Everything is Broken"
Tuesday, Nov. 4: Gerald Liu, "Kampala Flow: Spittin’ and Spirituality in Ugandan Rap?"
Thursday, Nov. 13: Bobby Clark (The Williams and Clark Expedition), "O Heaven Where Art Thou: The Redemptive Power of Bluegrass"
Thursday, Dec. 4: Amy Stroup, Brooke Waggoner and Charlie Peacock, "Restless Souls: Searching for Authenticity in Nashville’s Music Scene"
Media contact: Jim Patterson, (615) 322-NEWS
jim.patterson@vanderbilt.edu