Graduate Education in the Time of COVID-19

“The Buzz” examines scholarly topics in light of present-day concerns and challenges. This edition centers on the unique challenges of graduate education as a result of the restrictions of COVID-19. Those contributing to this discussion include Sarah E. Fredericks (associate professor of environmental ethics at the University of Chicago Divinity School), Steven Weitzman (Abraham M. Ellis professor of Hebrew and Semitic languages and literatures at the University of Pennsylvania), and Matthew Goff (professor of religion at Florida State University).

Building Philosophical Partnership

This paper explores the potential benefits of applying a technique of paired text study, usually used for the study of Rabbinic texts, called Havruta to teaching philosophy both undergraduate and divinity school settings. I also explore recent research on the significant gender gap in philosophy, which shows that much of the gender disparity occurs just after students' initial introduction to the discipline; some of this research suggests that this gap is linked to a "brilliance mindset," in which students think that success in philosophy is based almost entirely on raw talent, rather than a set of skills. I discuss how Havruta might be used to help students understand that it is possible to learn to how read and think philosophically, thereby helping combat the “brilliance mindset.”

Expanding the Theological Classroom

Disability, ableism, and universal design for learning continue to be under-investigated areas in the context of theological education. This essay considers the history of accessibility and disability in theological education, highlighting pressing considerations for contemporary theological educators. Offering a case study of a course in Christian ethics with degree-seeking Duke Divinity School students and community learners with intellectual and developmental disabilities, this essay analyzes both challenges and supports for the participation of diverse students in theological education. In conversation with scholars in the areas of disability studies and inclusive pedagogy, this essay also offers some best practices in relationship to disability and universal design for learning within a theological framework for education.

“I have to wait and look around”: George Fedotov’s letters from New Haven to his wife, 1941

The letters of the well-known émigré historian and essayist are published. The letters are stored in the Bakhmeteff archive of Russian and East European culture at Columbia University. In the introduction, the publisher shows the assistance rendered to G. Fedotov by the well-known figures of the Russian diaspora in the United States and characterizes the importance of the correspondence for study of how he was looking for his place in the American academic community. The historian hoped to find it due to the invitation to attend the meetings of the Theological Discussion Group. Particular attention is paid to G. Fedotov’s critical understanding of the intellectual heritage of his former colleague, Fr. S. Bulgakov, caused by the need to deliver lectures at Divinity School. The consequences of this were reflected in The Russian Religious Mind, the final work of the historian, in which he criticized pagan hylozoism found in Kievan Christianity, and negatively assessed the Byzantine influence. The text of the letters is presented in accordance with the present-day spelling rules and accompanied with the necessary commentary.

The Art of Public Worship: Percy Dearmer, William Palmer Ladd, and the American Liturgical Movement

While Percy Dearmer’s influence on Anglican liturgy through The Parson’s Handbook and The English Hymnal are well known, his lectures on The Art of Public Worship, given in 1919 when he was visiting professor at Berkeley Divinity School in Connecticut, USA, introduce a different phase of his liturgical thought. A new emphasis on modernizing language, brevity of form, and alternative forms of worship would later have expression in England via his association with the Guildhouse in London, and in the hymnal Songs of Praise. Comparing The Art of Public Worship with the later Prayer Book Interleaves by Berkeley Divinity School’s Dean William Palmer Ladd leads to the suggestion that this ‘second Dearmer’ also had an afterlife in the American liturgical movement.

Percy Dearmer Goes to America

Percy Dearmer’s time as a visiting lecturer at Berkeley Divinity School in Connecticut, USA, at the invitation of Dean William Palmer Ladd, from July 1918 to February 1919, marked a turning point in his life and career. As author of The Parson’s Handbook (1899) and Vicar of St Mary’s Primrose Hill (1901–1915), he was immersed in the Church of England. From 1919, when he left Berkeley Divinity School, with no offer of a clergy post until 1931, he worked on the margins of the church as a university lecturer, writer, and co-director of an experimental worshipping community. The experiences he had between 1915 and 1919 shaped this ‘second’ Dearmer: loss in the war; a second wife and new family; work with the YMCA in France and India; travels in the Anglican Communion and, not least, time at Berkeley where he consolidated these experiences, becoming attuned to those who wanted a spiritual life but were disillusioned by institutional religion, as expressed in The Art of Worship (1919).