Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings: Scholarly and Artistic Comment on Art, Truth, and Society in Honour of Lambert Zuidervaart

Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings: Scholarly and Artistic Comment on Art, Truth, and Society in Honour of Lambert Zuidervaart. Currents in Reformational Thought series. Edited by Héctor Acero Ferrer, Michael DeMoor, Peter Enneson and Matthew Klaassen. Eugene: Wipf and Stock, 2021.

Available at: Wipf and Stock Publishers

Publisher's Overview:

Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings pays tribute to Lambert Zuidervaart, one of the most productive Reformational philosophers of the present generation, by picking up the central concerns of his philosophical work--art, truth, and society--and working with the legacy of his published concern to see what more can be understood about our world in light of that legacy. Zuidervaart is an internationally recognized expert in critical theory, especially the work of Theodor Adorno, and a leading systematic philosopher in the reformational tradition. His research and teaching range across continental philosophy, epistemology, social philosophy, and philosophy of art, with an emphasis on Kant, Hegel, Marx, Heidegger, Gadamer, and Habermas. He is currently developing a new conception of truth for an allegedly post-truth society. At the Institute for Christian Studies (2002-2016), Zuidervaart held the Herman Dooyeweerd Chair in Social and Political Philosophy and served as founding Director of the Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics. He was also an Associate Member of the Graduate Faculty and Full Professor, status only, in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Toronto, and a member of the Advanced Degree Faculty at the Toronto School of Theology. Zuidervaart is currently a Visiting Scholar in the Department of Philosophy at Calvin University in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Seeking Stillness or The Sound of Wings seeks to promote new scholarship emerging from the rich and dynamic tradition of reformational intellectual inquiry. Believing that all scholarly endeavor is rooted in and oriented by deep spiritual commitments, reformational scholarship seeks to add its unique Christian voice to discussions about leading questions of life and society. From this source, it seeks to contribute to the redemptive transformation and renewal of the various aspects of contemporary society, developing currents of thought that open human imagination to alternative future possibilities that may helpfully address the damage we find in present reality. 

As part of this work, Currents in Reformational Thought will bring to light the inter-and multi-disciplinary dimensions of this intellectual tradition, and promote reformational scholarship that intentionally invites dialogue with other traditions or streams of thought.

Contributors:

Ronald A. Kuipers

Robert Sweetman

Janet Wesselius

Hendrik Hart

Calvin Seerveld

Joshua Lee Harris

Michael J. DeMoor

Shannon Hoff

Allyson Carr

Nicholas Wolterstorff

Adrienne Dengerink Chaplin

Rebekah Smick

Henry Luttikhuizen

Lauren Bialystok

Karen Nisenbaum

Martin Jay

Clarence Joldersma

Jonathan Chaplin

Artistic Contributors:

Joyce Recker

Michaeleen Kelly

Linda Nemec Foster

Sue Sinclair

Diane Zeeuw

Deborah Rockman

Jay Constantine

Ron and Miriam Pederson

Janet Read

Opening Frames: Cinema and Transcendence

A Two-Day Conference on Film and Spirituality

April 3–4, 2017

TIFF Bell Lightbox, Green Room
350 King Street West, Toronto · map

Featuring cinematic legend Paul Schrader (Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Affliction), speaking on the "Transcendental Style" in film

Other speakers include:

• Catherine Wheatley, King's College, London UK
• Joe Kickasola, Baylor University, New York
• Mark Cauchi, York University
• John Caruana, Ryerson University
• Special panel featuring social change consultant David Peck interviewing filmmakers Sherien Barsoum and Hugh Gibson, and also including Mark Kingwell and Paul Johansen 

Schedule

Monday, 1:00pm–4:00pm
Registration (1:00) and Panel Discussion (2:00–4:00) with David Peck (moderator), Hugh Gibson, Sherien Barsoum, Paul Johansen, and Mark Kingwell

Keynote Speaker 7:00pm
Paul Schrader (with Joe Kickasola)

Tuesday, 10:00am–4:00pm
Workshop 1: Catherine Wheatley (10:30–12:00)
Workshop 2: Mark Cauchi, John Caruana (1:00–2:25)
Workshop 3: Joe Kickasola (2:35–4:00)


Register ($65 for both days)
Registration for Paul Schrader's lecture only can be done at the TIFF page for the lecture. (Note that on the linked page you must float your cursor over the event date and click on that in order to be taken to TIFF's Ticketmaster page, where you can then purchase tickets for the Schrader lecture.)

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Presented through a partnership between TIFF, The Institute for Christian Studies' Centre for Philosophy, Religion, and Social Ethics, Ryerson University, and Imago.

Mystical Landscapes: From Vincent van Gogh to Emily Carr

"'The Second Book of God': Protestant Mysticism." Rebekah Smick. In Mystical Landscapes: From Vincent Van Gogh to Emily Carr Ed. Katharine Lochnan. Art Gallery of Ontario & Musée d'Orsay. DelMonico Books - Prestel. November 2016.

Find it at: Random House

Publisher's Overview:

This richly illustrated volume explores mystical themes in European, Scandinavian, and North American landscape paintings from the late 1800s to the early 1900s. Beautifully illustrated with works by Emily Carr, Marc Chagall, Arthur Dove, Paul Gauguin, Lawren Harris, Gustav Klimt, Piet Mondrian, Claude Monet, Edvard Munch, Georgia O’Keeffe, Vincent van Gogh and James McNeill Whistler, among others.

Common to their work is the expression of the spiritual crisis that arose in society and the arts in reaction to the disillusionments of the modern age, and against the malaise that resulted in the Great War. Many artists turned their backs on institutional religion, searching for truth in universal spiritual philosophies. This book includes essays investigating mystical landscape genres and their migration from Scandinavia to North America, with a focus upon the Group of Seven and their Canadian and American counterparts.

Accompanying an exhibition at the Art Gallery of Ontario and the Musée d’Orsay, this book offers a penetrating look at the Symbolist influence on the landscape genre.

The Byzantine Icon is Alive and Well: The Practice and Reflections of a Working Iconographer

Thursday March 27, 2014. 7–9 PM
ART TALKS! lecture with iconographer Lynette Hull.

Father Madden Hall, St. Michael’s College
100 St. Joseph Street, Toronto – map

• Rebekah Smick interviewed Lynette Hull in advance of her presentation. You can watch this video on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kg5ED4WA3rI.

Funding for this event was provided by the Ruth Memorial Fund. Co-sponsored by ICS Centre for Philosophy, Religion and Social Ethics, Toronto School of Theology and the Toronto School of Theology Liturgy Seminar. Rebekah Smick, organiser.

Imagination's Truths Art Talks! Event

Imagination's Truths: Re-envisioning Imagination in Philosophy, Religion and the Arts. Richard Kearney, Mark Knight, Ronald Kuipers, Anne Michaels and Rebekah Smick. 2012

• Watch on YouTube

Videos include an interview with and a lecture by Richard Kearney (Charles B. Seelig Chair of Philosophy, Boston College) and a panel discussion including Kearney plus Mark Knight (English, U. of T.), Ronald A. Kuipers (Phil. of Rel., ICS), Canadian writer Anne Michaels and Rebekah Smick (Phil. Of Arts & Culture, ICS) moderating.

The event was produced by the Centre for Philosophy, Religion and Social Ethics (CPRSE) in conjunction with Emmanuel College, in Toronto Canada, and took place on October 13, 2012.

Antiquity and Its Interpreters

Rebekah Smick, Alina Payne, Anne Kuttner (eds.). Antiquity and Its Interpreters. Cambridge, UK; New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Find it on: Amazon

Antiquity and its Interpreters examines how the physical and textual remains of the ancient Romans were viewed and received by writers, artists, architects, and cultural makers of early modern Italy. The importance of antiquity in the Renaissance has long been acknowledged, but this volume reconsiders the complex relationship between the two cultures in light of recent scholarship in the field and a new appreciation and awareness of the act of history writing itself. The case studies analyze specific texts, the archaeological projects that made 'antiquity' available, the revival of art history and theory, the appropriation of antiquities to serve social ideologies, and the reception of this cultural phenomenon in modern historiography, among other topics. Demonstrating that the antique model was itself an artful construct, Antiquity and its Interpreters shows that the originality of Renaissance culture owed as much to ignorance about antiquity as to an understanding of it. It also provides a synthesis of seminal work that recognizes the reciprocal relationship of the Renaissance to antiquity.