Society for the Arts in Religious and Theological Studies

What exactly is poetry? Or, more to the point: what sort of art is poetry, and what does the poet’s work teach us about the arts in more general terms? In keeping with SARTS’s tradition of inviting artists to address us as one component of our scheduled sessions, this year’s annual meeting featured poet Jane Hirshfield who explored such questions in her presentation “Given Sugar, Given Salt: Poetry, Art, and Inclusion.” 

Pioneering theologian Alejandro (Alex) García-Rivera (1951-2010) was a committed scholar to the end. During the last weeks of his life, as Alex met with colleagues and students who came to his bedside, he constantly expressed the hope that the “paradigm shift” he had begun would continue to gain momentum. Shortly after his passing, his current and former students and colleagues began to think of ways to honor him while moving the scholarly conversation about theological aesthetics forward. This had been his last charge to them.

Jane Huber, a doctoral candidate at Union Theological Seminary in New York City, was a 2008-09 SARTS Student Fellow. She created, Keeping Time: Sung Gospels and Moving Images, a multi-media piece that explores theological and historical time. Read Huber's thoughts on her project and watch the final masterpiece performed on October 5, 2009 in James Chapel at Union.