Art and Music

Selected Articles on Art and Music

Film

Forgiveness and Pain: Mass, the Movie
I Can't Swear Allegiance to Hitler: Review of A Hidden Life
The Ethics of Body Swapping: Film Review of Advantageous
1917: Watching War Movies as a Spiritual Practice
And Breathe Normally: A Socially Literate Film on Immigration and Friendship
Steven Universe: The Need for a Kind and Caring (Cartoon) Savior
Their Dichotomy is a Kind of Harmony: Reflections on "The Two Popes"
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood: Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat Film Review
The Man Who Knew Infinity
The Cave: Film Review
Ága: Film Review by Frederic and Mary Ann Brussat
Country Music: Film Review
The Gospel of Eureka: Queerly Good News in Eureka Springs, Arkansas
How the Songs of Bruce Springsteen can Mentor a Life
Angels are Made of Light
Yesterday: A Film Review
Skin in the Game: A Film Review
Last Black Man in San Francisco: Film Review
Knock Down the House: Film Review
Facing the Buried Horrors: MIcah Busey Reviews the Horror Film US
Birds of Passage (Pájaros de Verano): A Film Review
The Best of Enemies: Film Review
Blessed are the Caregivers: Film Review of "Diane"
HUMAN: The Movie and the Music
Black Panther: Metaphysics, Music, Plot
The Shape of Water: A Process Perspective
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri
On Her Shoulders: Review of Documentary on Young Yazidi Woman, Nadia Murad
The Hospitable Soul: Less Judgment, More Chocolate

Visual Art

He Taught Us How to Search for Beauty: Christopher Alexander, Architect for a Living World
Frida Kahlo: Artist and Exemplar
Deus ex Photographia: Theopoetics from Thomas Oord
Deus ex Photographia: Four Short Theologies from Thomas Oord
Process, Beauty, and Locally Grown Power: CHERP's Vision of the Role of Art in the American Factory
Bringing Life to Life: One Role of Art in an Ecological Civilization
Artistic Creativity as Spiritual Practice: An Example from Islamic Culture
Pat Brentano: The Artist as Visual Guide for an Ecological Civilization
Give You My Breath: The Buddhist-Inspired Art of Melissa Gill
Improvisational Healing Spaces: Marilyn Biles
June Xie: How Photography Becomes Prayer
Maxine Payne: Photographer
Marney Ward and the Tangible Presence of Light
Silence: The Art of Odilon Redon

Creative Writing

First Snow: Susannah Stubbs
The Mystics: Kathleen Jacobson
The Cat Lady: Kathleen Jacobson
Without Poetry, What? Finding Your Inner Ozark with help from Wendy Taylor Carlisle
Listening for Names: A Poem by Dea Jenkins
Missing Bland Crowder: Why Sustainability Needs Poetry
Where Does Such Tenderness Come From?
Ten Reasons to Like Frederick Buechner
W.B. Yeats Reads The Lake Isle of Innisfree
Follow Your Inner Moonlight: Notes on Allen Ginsberg and Alfred North Whitehead
280 Billion Songbirds Lost. My Grief is Complete. A Poem.
Carolina Hinojosa-Cisneros: Theopoetics in Action

Music

The Enduring Popularity of Elvis Presley
I Got a Love: Elizabeth King, Gospel Singer
Culture as a Cosmic Living Organism: Kubarsy, Ukrainian Folk-Based Multimedia Performances
Mercedes Sosa - Sólo Le Pido a Dios
The Keep Going Song and Process Theology
Finding the "Yum" in Things: Esperanza Spalding, Process Theology, and Ecological Civilization
What does God's Breathing Sound Like? Caitlin Frasure, Delvyn Case, and New Classical Music
Theology from Sacred Music: Deus ex Musica and the Alphabet of Spiritual Literacy
Media Ecology in a Jazz Mode: Eric McLuhan, Peter Zhang
Beyond the Skinny "I": Listening for the Unexpected in Ukranian Folk-Punk of ДахаБраха
Disability and Imagination: Molly Joyce on Creative Transformation
Lift Every Voice and Sing
Jimmy Carter Rock & Roll President
Anaïs Maviel: Without Great Black Music
Process and Hip Hop: Jon Gill
Music in W.E.B. Du Bois' "The Souls of Black Folks"
Whitehead and Little Richard: A Hunger for Intensity, Human and Divine
All I Have to Do is Dream? Pop Harmonies as Windows to God
Music Drawn from Jewish Traditions
True Protest is Beauty: Phil Ochs, Process Theology, and Islam
Do You Think You are Superior to Us? Fatoumata Diawara
Lei Liang - A Thousand Mountains, A Million Streams
Polyhymnia: Notes for a Jazz Mass
Salvation by Marimba: A Process Appreciation
Helping Those Who Can Sing but Not Speak: Melodic Intonation Therapy as Practicing the Presence of God
Man Cannot Live by Drumming Alone: A Tribute to Neil Peart of Rush
American Rage: The Piano Version
Mysteries of the Macabre: Beautifully Going Bonkers with Soprano Barbara Hannigan
Pieces that Fall to Earth: The Dome of Heaven is Made of Feathers
What the World's Religions can learn from Irish Pub Music
Thy Will be Done in Heaven Even if Not on Earth: An Appreciation of Allison Moorer's "Blood"
Keep Dreaming, Never Stop: the Psychedelic Turkish Art Rock of Gaye Su Akyol
The Korean Haegum (奚琴) and Spirituality
Neanderthal Pulsewave: Primitive Motion, Cradle of the Horizon, and Process Theology
"Spirit" by Joe Lombardi: A Song for the Earth
The San Francisco Girl's Chorus: Empowerment and Transformation through Choral Music
Idin Samimi Mofakham - آیدین صمیمی مفخم
Color Things Differently: What Christians, Jews, and Muslims can learn from Hip-Hop Country
비자아: Buddhist No-Self in a Dark and Digital World
মশ্তিষ্কের কণ্ঠশ্বর | Voices in my head: The Sound Art of Tavishi
Pisitakun from Thailand: Experimental Electronic Music as Free Speech
The Sonic Side of Reincarnation: Listening to Death and Rebirth through Experimental Electronic Music of Sabiwa
We Live in a Terrible Time: Heavy Metal (Doom) Music as a Shot of Aliveness in an Ecocidal World
Tank and the Bangas: Theopoetic Notes
So This is What Happened to Me: Ellen Reid's Prize Winning Opera on Sexual Abuse
Elisapie - Arnaq - Reverence
Boo Bah Bah: A Daily Dose of Constructive Weirdness
Imagining the Faith of Lady Gaga: A Theopoetic Exploration
Ruth, the Song of Songs, and Brandi Carlile: Resources for a Morning Devotional
Marian Anderson: Persuasive Power as the Beautiful Voice
Wherever It Falls: New Music with Arab Roots
There's a Light Inside Us: The Power of Music for People with Dementia and Alzheimer's
The Spiritual Side of Meredith Monk: Primal Theopoetics
Black Metal Evensong: A Song by Panopticon
Becoming a Drop of Kindness: Yungchen Lhamo, Tibetan Buddhism, and Whitehead
Claiming Your Inner Mermaid: Gyða Valtýsdóttir's Evolution
Electronically Queer Heterotopias: The art of Tara Transitory and Justyna Stasiowska
Pauline Oliveros and Process Theology
Whitehead's Sonic Ontology and its Performance in Sound Poetry
Marissa Nadler's For My Crimes: The Spiritual Side
A Woman of Constant Transformation: Alice Coltrane
Rang Tang Ring Toon Theology: Interpreting a Song by Mountain Man Religiously
Seeking Joy in the Jungle: Theology from the X Ambassadors Band
Pop Songs as Postmodern Angels
What's Up, Patriarchy? Lady Gaga, Fem-Country-Punk, and the Book of Esther
Ecclesiastes in Country Music: Robert Williamson and Jason Isbell
A Little Edgy, a Little Weird: The Electronic Church and Process Theology
Electronic Music and the Face of the Deep: The Ambient Church and Process Theology
More than Frankie Cosmos? An Interview with Greta Kline
L'Rain and the Spiritual in the Secular
The One Thus Gone: A Sample of Contemporary Music Based on Buddhist Chants and Prayer
What's to Love about Top Forty Pop Music? A Theological Appreciation
Florence + the Machine: A Theology of "Big God"
The King: Elvis Presley as a Metaphor for the Rise and Decline of America
Cui Jian: The Beginning of Chinese Rock Music
My Life in Rap (So Far): Toki Wright, Remington Harris, and Phillip Fletcher
Music and the Sense of Being Alive: Thandeka's Affect Theology
La Santa Cecilia: Latin Culture, Rock, and World Music
Process Theology and Popular Music: A Summer Course
Sympathy for the Devil: The Transgressive Impulse in Rock Music
The Early Beatles: You Know You Should Be Glad
Don Viney: Philosopher and Musician
The Desire for Satisfaction: Thinking about Whitehead with help from the Rolling Stones
Gina Rendina: The Hunger for Collective Joy and the Calling of a Cruise Ship Vocalist
Metal Music: A Hunger for Transgressive Spiritual Spaces
Sinny Sin Sins: Songs about Sin and Thoughts about Sin
Pete Seeger on Peace, Whitehead, and the National Anthem
John Darnielle of the Mountain Goats
Shamanic Rock: Introducing Attila Grandpierre and the Galloping Wonder Stag
Fourth World Aesthetics: Jon Hassell and Whitehead
The Romanticism of Bjork: Paganism, Panentheism, and Biophilia
Getting Back to the Garden: The Romantic Impulse in Popular Music
I Feel Good When I Sing with Others: Group Singing as a Spiritual and Social Practice
Sufjan Stevens: Spirit of My Silence
Pop Harmonies as Windows to God: Gratitude to the Everly Brothers
Novelty Makes the World Go Round: Nietzsche, Whitehead, and Lydia Ainsworth
Crazy Metaphysics and the Joy of Being Alive: Anna Meredith and Alfred North Whitehead
The Joy of Going Bonkers: The Exuberant Music of Anna Meredith
Jazz is the Mother of Hip Hop
We Dream of Better Places: Jazz and Social Justice
Joe Davis and the Poetic Diaspora: Pentecostal Theopoetics
Polyrhythmic Theology: Drum Circles within Drum Circles
Hindi-Urdu-English: The Theopoetics of Humeysha
Islam, Jazz, and Zen: The Philosophy of Abdullah Ibrahim
I Will Survive: The Breakup Song as Spiritual Companion
Cheer the Hell Up: The Theopoetics of David Byrne
SHE: Alice Phoebe Lou
Sludge Metal: Theological Reflections
Afghan Rap
Philosophy from the Guitar: Chris Mosley of the Grizzly Adams Family
At Last My Love Has Come Along: The Religious Significance of Popular Love Songs
Why Listen to Country Music?
Hungarian Rhapsody #2 (played by George Li)
In the Beginning is the Remixing: The Social and Theological Significance of DJ Culture
Rhythm and Blues: Intimacy and Transcendence in the Thick of Life
The Religious Side of Electronic Dance Music
Hip Hop and the Politics of Race: The Personal as Political
Finding Your Inner Banjo
Four Kinds of Holy: Jamila Woods
DAMN. - A Review by Rodney Carmichael of Kendrick Lamar's Album
"Mary" by Big Thief: Grace through Friendships
Daniil Trifonov
Loving You is Complicated: Two Ways of Conceiving God in Hip Hop Theology
By the Way, I Forgive You Kind Of: Brandi Carlile
Hip Hop Lyrics as Sacred Text: Toki Wright
Spiritual Jukebox for a Multifaith World
Sampha: The Piano as Spiritual Friend
The Religious Significance of Popular Music
Delvyn Case: Classical Christian Punk Musician
Asmaa Elamrousy: Hip Hop Hijabi
Irreversible Entanglements: Black Liberation Jazz
Ariadne: Postmodern Sacred Music (Christian)
Moor Mother and Black Quantum Futurism
Dancing in the Real World: Theologizing from the Site of the Flesh
The Huntress and the Holder of Hand: Creative Lamentation
Preach, Kendrick, Preach: Popular Music as Sacred Text
Sounds of the Deep: What God Heard Before the Dawn of Creation
The Sound and the Fury: Whitehead and Hardcore Punk
Irreversible Entanglements: Black Liberation Free Jazz
Ariadne: Postmodern Sacred Music (Christian)
Perfume Genius: The Coalescence of Grace, Sex, Defiance, Dread, and Erotic Power
We Learn to Improvise: Miles Davis and Process Theology
Loving You is Complicated: Comfort and Affliction in Hip Hop Theologies
Fat Soul Band and Four J's: Musicking for a Better World
Amelia Ray and Levon Helm: Music as a Portable Homeland
Music for the Elderly: Healing Benefits