Theology and the Arts: Our News and What’s Next
9th July 2026
Fr Dominic White OP, Director of the Centre for Theology and the Arts at Blackfriars, provides the following update:
In 2026-27…
We’re planning to move up from two to three seminars per term, so that Theology and the Arts really becomes part of everyone’s diary!
The year will launch on Friday 23 October, 2-4 pm, with a special lecture-recital in Blackfriars Priory church featuring musical and poetic explorations of psalms of praise. The seminar will feature a new setting of Psalm 148 for soprano and piano commissioned from Fr Dominic White OP, by the Kirby Laing Foundation, sung by soprano Lizzy Spight, along with offerings from composers Malcolm Atkins, Delvyn Case (Wheaton College Massachusetts), and Zimbabwean mbira virtuoso John Pfumojena, as well as poets Dr Edward Clarke (English Faculty) and Ariel Kahn (Woolf Institute). This event is being co-curated by Deus Ex Musica.
Other confirmed speakers for 2026-27 include musician and theologian Dr Margarita Mooney Clayton (Blackfriars Hall and Princeton Theological Seminary), with a seminar recital on the medieval chant antiphon, and artist and philosopher Dr Gareth Polmeer (Royal College of Art and Margaret Beaufort Institute) on the use of AI as a creative tool.
…And save the date! Saturday 5th June 2027 is our summer conference, Theology, Art and Nature, jointly with the Las Casas Institute and the Pontifical University of St Thomas (Angelicum). A call for papers will be going out in the autumn.
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Published past conference papers are accessible via New Blackfriars link.