MWP 404 Worship and the Arts - Fall 2015 1
MWP 404 Worship and the Arts - “Black Lives Matter”
McCormick Theological Seminary
Fall 2015 - Wednesdays - 2:30-5:20 pm
Common Room
Instructor: Rev. Dr. Cláudio Carvalhaes
E-mail: ccarvalhaes@mccormick.edu / Office: 356 / * Please e-mail for appointment
Course description
Through readings, lectures, discussions, practices, a variety of artistic expressions, workshops with
professional artists, and creative worship experiences, participants will explore the liturgical and
theological connections between worship and the arts from the perspective of the movement, Black
Lives Matter. We will engage a number of issues regarding arts and worship, but the underlyning
question of racism, as well as the place we will start, will be the Black Lives Matter movement in the
United States. As a way of exploring multiple means of witnessing to the Christian faith, we will begin
with the BLM movement, engaging not only with the the arts, but also with other communities and
actions. Given the centrality of the arts to this class, we will be visiting a few museums in Chicago.
Desired learning outcomes:
Through full participation in this course, students will







think critically and constructively about the relationship between worship/liturgy and the arts,
particularly through the engagement with challenges presented with Black Lives Matter;
engage with artists and learn skills and strategies for pastoral ministry and community activities;
discern and develop their own distinctive gifts for liturgical leadership and theological reflection
through the arts;
be able to use arts to engage and deconstruct racism, economic inequality, and the ecological
crisis;
learn how to use the symbolic resources of the Christian faith to deal with desire;
become more aware of the two-way dialogue between worship leaders and artists, and how it can
contribute and affect the Christian faith and consequently our societies and our world;
find inspiration for academic work, preaching, teaching, and worship leadership through creative
exploration of the arts in liturgical, theological, and social practices/discourses.
Course Assignments and Grades:
1. Conscientious attendance and participation in discussion. You must come to class prepared with all
the readings done. Lack of preparation and lack of attendance with thorough and timely class
preparation will adversely affect your course grade. Please inform me ahead of time if you have to
miss class. Missing more than 1 class will prevent you from getting an “A” grade, and missing more
than 2 classes puts you in serious danger of failing the course. Know that this course will involve
the use of the body and different exercises in class. You will not be required to engage in any activity
you are physically incapable but,it is fully expected that you will engage in some meaningful way in
all the events and activities proposed by this course. (15%)
2 MWP 404 Worship and the Arts - Fall 2015
2. Class presentation. Students will be asked to lead one or two reading discussions. (15%)
3. Visit to a non-Christian worship service. The student will have to visit a non-Christian worship
service and write a two-page paper responding to these two questions: 1) How was art related to
this worship service?; 2) Was there anything related to race/racism present in the ritual? If so,
what? (20%)
4. Collective worship servcie. All of the students will (work together to) prepare a worship service for
chapel on December 2. More information will be given in class. (20%)
5. Final project in the Common Room. Your final project will be an artistic creation of your own choice,
engaging the resources used in class. You will have 20 minutes to present your project on the last
day of class, and should bring a five-page paper with a theoretical explanation of the project to be
given to the instructor at the beginning of class. Papers will be double-spaced, in 12-point Times
New Roman. Please use the Chicago Manual of Style for citations and footnotes. Improper citations
or bibliography will dimish your grade. December 10. (30%)
* Visits. We will organize visits to the following museums and performances. Studens are strongly
encouraged to participate, but are not required to do so.
. Contemporary Museum of Fine Arts
. Mexican Museum of Art
. Chicago Art Museum
. Improvisation Performance at IO Theater
. Slam Poetry – Green Mill
* This class will meet at the Common Room, Learning Resource and Writing Center (LRWC) and
Museums.
Required texts:
Ferguson and Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community, Leah Gunning Francis, Chalice
Press, 2015.
Liturgy as a Way of Life: Embodying the Arts in Christian Worship, Bruce Ellis Benson, 2013.
Dance in Scripture: How Biblical Dancers Can Revolutionize Worship Today, Angela Yarber Oregon:
Cascade Books, 2013.
The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation, Ralph C. Watkins, Jason A. Barr Jr., JamalHarrison Bryant, William H. Curtis, Otis Moss III, Authors, Valley Forge, PA: Judson Pr., 2007.
MWP 404 Worship and the Arts - Fall 2015 3
Suggestions:
She Who Imagines: Feminist Theological Aesthetics, Laurie Cassidy and Maureen H. O'Connell
(Authors, Editors), Liturgical Press, 2012.
* Daily Rituals: How Artists Work, Mason Currey (Editor), Knopf, 2013. ISBN 0307273601
* http://www.wabashcenter.wabash.edu/resources/result-browse.aspx?topic=530&pid=427
Course outline:
Please note that readings and class themes might be adjusted by the instructor and students
according to their decisions.
September 9 – Introduction and the Beauty of Worship and the Arts
In this class, we will a) read the syllabus together, b) discuss the activities during the semester, c)
divide the presentations, d) organize outside vists (theater and museums), and e) start making
connections between worship and the arts and beauty.
September 16 – Racism and Worship
Readings:
1) Liturgy, Culture and Race: Introduction, W. Scott Haldeman
2) Building a Reconciling Community: The Legacy of Howard Thurman, W. Scott Haldeman
3) Kingdom Play? Striving against Racisms through Worship in a Postcolonial Mode, Richard E.
McCarron
4) Antiracist Preaching: Homiletical Strategies for Undermining Racism in Worship, Suzanne Wenonah
Duchesne
All these articles are published in Liturgy, Special Issue: Liturgy, Culture and Race, W. Scott Haldeman
(editor), Volume 29, Issue 3, 2014.
Suggestion: A Short History of Racism, George M. Fredrickson, Princeton University Press, 2003. Read
Chapters One, Two and Three.
For the following class: watch Waste Land, Un Documentaire Sur L’Art, Directed by Lucy Walker,
2009. Available on Netflix. If you don’t have an account to Netflix talk to the instructor.
Guest Speaker: Dr. David Daniels III
4 MWP 404 Worship and the Arts - Fall 2015
September 23 – Arts as a Social Practice: Trauma, Social Resistence and Environment
Readings: Education for Socially Engaged Art. A Materials and Techniques, Pablo Helgera.
Empathic Vision: Affect, Trauma, and Contemporary Art, Jill Bennett, (Stanford: Stanford
University Press, 2005). Read “Introduction” and "On the subject of trauma."
Discuss Waste Land
Video (in class): Pussy Riot, A Punk Prayer, Directed by Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin, 2013
Suggestions on Street Art
Readings:
. Street Art South Africa: http://www.graffitisouthafrica.com/news/categories/street-art/
. Street Art Egypt: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/egypts-murals-are-more-thanjust-art-they-are-a-form-of-revolution-36377865/?no-ist
. Street Art South America http://culture.oasiscollections.com/our-favorite-south-american-streetartists
. Street Art Chicago: http://www.chicagoreader.com/chicago/street-art-scene-artists-galleries-fansvariety/Content?oid=14273045
Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRu0y-ndIyM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Cs883NS88E
Guest Speakers: Gregory and Nohemi Cué llar
September 30 – Black Lives Matter
Reading: Ferguson and Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community, Leah Gunning Francis
Suggestion:
Video: Jean-Michel Basquiat: The Radiant Child, Directed by Tamra Davis, 2010
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GTbykf5Fpl0
http://www.bravenewfilms.org/racism
Guest: Leah Gipson
MWP 404 Worship and the Arts - Fall 2015 5
October 7 – Music and Worship - * Instructor won’t be in class
Video: We are together, Directed by Paul Taylor, 2007
Collective Task: In class, you will watch this movie, talk about music, and write a collective paper of
3-5 pages, double-spaced, written in 12-point font, answering the questions below. Send the paper
to the instructor’s email by the end of class.
1) What is the role of music in this community?
2) If we consider this community AND other communities, where are the connections
between music, community and worship?
3) Are there limits to the use of music in worship?
For the following class: watch Baraka, Directed by Ron Fricke, 2001. Rent it at
http://www.amazon.com/Baraka-Ron-Fricke/dp/B00AYB1GAS/ref=sr_1_1?s=instantvideo&ie=UTF8&qid=1441589106&sr=1-1&keywords=Baraka
October 14 – We Are Art, We Are Praise! Worship and Inter-Religious Dialogue - Class at: Art
Institute of Chicago
Readings: Liturgy as a Way of Life: Embodying the Arts in Christian Worship, Bruce Ellis Benson, 2013.
Sugestions: Every Time I Feel the Spirit Religious Experience and Ritual in an African American Church,
Timothy J. Nelson, Every Time I Feel the Spirit: Religious Experience and Ritual in an African
American Church, New York: NYU Press, 2004.
“Epilogue: But Even so, Look at That,” in Do Jews, Christians, & Muslims Worship the Same God?, Jacob
Neusner et alli, Abingdon: Nashiville, TN, 2012. Pp. 131-146.
For the following class: Watch Beautiful Losers, directed by Aaron Rose and co-directed by Joshua
Leonard, 2008. * Rent at Amazon.com. You will be reimbursed for the online rent.
http://www.amazon.com/Beautiful-Losers-Ed-Templeton/dp/B003BTMCBW
Visit: Art Institute of Chicago
October 21 – The Power of Creativity – At the Contemporary Museum of Art
Readings: The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World, Lewis Hyde, New York: Vintage,
2007. Read Introduction, Chapter Two, and Conclusion.
Discuss Beautiful Losers
Suggestion: Culture Crash. The Killing of the Creative Class, Scott Timberg, New Haven: Yale, 2015.
Visit: Contemporary Museum of Art
“The Freedom Principle: Experiments in Art and Music, 1965 to Now”
6 MWP 404 Worship and the Arts - Fall 2015
Watch this vídeo before coming to class: Marina Abramovic, The Artist Is Present, The Hardest Thing
to do is Something which is close to nothing. HBO Documentary, Directed by Jeff Dupre and Maro
Chermayer, 2010.
October 26-30 – Reading Week
November 4 – The Power of Images at The Mexican Museum of Art
Readings: The Great Migration: An American Story, by Jacob Lawrence, HarperCollins, 1995
Visual Faith: Art, Theology, and Worship in Dialogue, by William A. Dyrness, pp. 87-162.
November 11 – Improvisation
Readings: Improvisation At the Speed of Life, The TJ and Dave Book, T.J. Jagowski and David Pasquesi,
Chicago: Solo Roma Inc., 2015. Everything but Chapter Three.
Guest: Dina Facklis
November 18 – The Body, Dance and the Arts
Readings: Dance in Scripture: How Biblical Dancers Can Revolutionize Worship Today, Angela Yarber
Oregon: Cascade Books, 2013
Vídeo (in class): Rize, Directed by David LaChapelle, 2005
Guest Speaker: Gloria Mwez
Videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nk3OujV1MoI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5P-TXxoWTSE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8xxgFpK-NM
November 25 – Ethnicity, Borders and Arts - Frida Kahlo and Ai Weiwei
NO CLASS – ONLINE TASK
Task: for this class, you will watch the two movies below and write a 2-3-page paper for each artist,
responding to the following questions:
1) How has the location/ethnicity of Ai Weiwei and Frida Kahlo influenced their art?
2) Is their art local or universal?
MWP 404 Worship and the Arts - Fall 2015 7
Videos:
1) Ai Weiwei. Never Sorry, Directed by Alison Klayman, 2011
Rent at Amazon.com : Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry $2.99 (you will be reimbursed)
2) Frida, 2004
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiwIxW5jb38
Suggestion: Her Dress Hangs There, And We Too – Frida Kahlo in Latin America, by Cláudio
Carvalhaes (available on Moodle)
December 2 – The Power of Language, Metaphors, Poetry, Slam Poetry, Spoken Word
* All students will plan and lead worship together in chapel today with instructor.
Readings:
The Gospel Remix: Reaching the Hip Hop Generation by Ralph C. Watkins, Jason A. Barr Jr., JamalHarrison Bryant, William H. Curtis, Otis Moss III.
Suggestions:
The Hip-Hop Church: Connecting with the Movement Shaping Our Culture, Efrem Smith, Phil Jackson.
Create Dangerously: The Immigrant Artist at Work, Edwidge Danticat, Vintage, 2011, pp. 1-20.
In Her Own Rite: Constructing Feminist Liturgical Tradition, Marjorie Procter Smith, Akron, OH: OSL
Publications, 2000, pp. 48-102.
Videos: Youtube videos will be shared – Temporary ones:
Otis Moss on Hip Hop - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7BMv4nvG1Y
Mos Def – “Mr. Nigga” – (from Black on Both Sides)
Black Star
David Chapelle’s Block Party
Public Enemy
December 9 – Final projects done in class
8 MWP 404 Worship and the Arts - Fall 2015
* Possible Guests during this class – Pending confirmation:
Allison Hales
Gloria Mwez
Dina Facklis
Shawna Bowman
Elyssa Salinas
David Daniels
Rami Nashashibi
Otis Moss III
Katy Scrogin