Centre for Theology and the Arts
The Arts and Theology in Conversation
Director: Rev Dr Dominic White OP
- An intellectually rigorous conversation about the Arts as a key element of Theology, the creative person imaging the creator God, the God made visible in the incarnation, “both an encouragement and a challenge to Christians” (St John Paul II, Letter to Artists).
- The arts and theology in conversation with wider society in our shared experience of depth, resonance, uplift and the search for meaning.
- Every event involves a real experience of art, in whatever medium (visual, poetry, music, theatre) – embodied experience and scholarship together.
Notes on the image: Virgin and Child by Janet Boulton
Our first year 2025-26
We are delighted with our first year of seminars, covering everything from literature to music and theatre to architecture, including at least one multimedia artist. As we’d very much hoped, the Centre has attracted staff and students both from Oxford Theology and other departments too, and also active artists from Oxford and further afield. Thank you all for your support. And we published our launch conference in New Blackfriars.
Coming soon 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, a new setting of Psalm 148 for soprano and piano commissioned from Fr Dominic White OP, by the Kirby Laing Foundation. It will be sung by soprano Lizzy Spight, with a musical response from Malcolm Atkins and poetic responses from Dr Edward Clarke (English Faculty) and Ariel Kahn (Woolf Institute).
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.