Sacred music is foundational to many of the world’s artistic traditions, and this is especially so when it comes to Western music. It is also an artistic — and academic — area that continues to grow and develop.

To celebrate and promote this diverse art form, the University of Notre Dame is launching a Doctor of Musical Arts (DMA) program with majors in organ and choral conducting, beginning in fall 2013.

“Given Notre Dame’s educational mission, its Catholic foundation and our recent investments in faculty who are recognized leaders in sacred music, the University is uniquely poised to develop young musicians to serve the Church and world,” says , I.A. O’Shaughnessy Dean of the .

The doctorate, he notes, will be a core component of the University’s larger initiative and has been generously supported by a grant of nearly $2 million.

The goal of the new program is to prepare musicians to work at the highest artistic levels in colleges and universities; cathedrals, churches, and seminaries; and in the larger community of artists, says , professor of conducting in the College’s .

“We will offer DMA degrees specifically in organ and choral conducting because these are fields where the repertoire focuses on sacred genres but at the same time is not exclusively sacred music. In fact, these repertoires cover a broad spectrum of artistic achievements in history,” Téllez says. “Ecumenical and cross-cultural connections can and must be made.”

Carmen-Helena Téllez

Students accepted into the three-year DMA program, approximately four each year, will be provided with full tuition plus a yearly stipend, part of which includes paid internships at local churches. Program requirements include a short thesis and three major recitals, one of which must be a lecture recital.

In addition to deep study of their performance medium, DMA students will receive training in areas such as musicology, ethnomusicology, historical performance practices, Church music traditions, liturgy and ritual studies, theology, music theory, composition and music in interdisciplinary arts. The program challenges students to position the music they perform in its religious context as well as its historical, theoretical, aesthetic and social dimensions. Sacred Music at Notre Dame will also offer advanced training in working with children’s choirs to students in both the DMA and the College’s .

Each DMA student will be admitted into a concentration, either conducting or organ. With the advice of a faculty mentor, they also have the option of combining a coherent track of courses to obtain a certificate of secondary specialization in professional fields that have important interactions with the practice of sacred music, such as:

• Interdisciplinary presentation, which may include a practicum in the arranging and composition of sacred music;
• Early music, with emphasis on history and performance practice;
• Liturgical studies or another area in theology; or
• Lay ministry, consistent with new certification standards approved by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops and the standards of other North American Christian denominations.

Téllez, a renowned specialist in contemporary choral repertories and the use of multimedia and digital display in performance, will lead the performance studio in conducting. Before coming to Notre Dame in 2012, she served as director of the Latin American Music Center and director of graduate choral studies at Indiana University.

Craig Cramer

, professor of music, will lead the performance studio in organ. In addition to being a master teacher with a strong student-placement record, Cramer performs on stages, in concert halls and at churches around the world. Most recently, he was invited to be the featured organist at the 2014 National Convention of the American Guild of Organists in Boston.

“The number of places that teach sacred music — including organ — has dropped precipitously, and Notre Dame has made an incredible commitment to ensure that we have a place in this profession,” he says. “And with that new organ, our program is poised to take another quantum leap forward.”

In addition to working with Notre Dame faculty, DMA students will regularly have the opportunity to interact with major artists on ensembles, Téllez adds, noting that Sacred Music at Notre Dame recently hosted composer James MacMillan this fall at its inaugural festival and conference.

“Many well-known artists will be coming to campus through our Mellon Sacred Music Drama Project and the new Lilly Religious Musical Heritage Project,” she says. “This allows students to develop important professional connections with leaders in the field.”

The University also has multiple centers and initiatives around the world — including in Rome, London and parts of Latin America — in which Téllez anticipates the DMA faculty and students will be participating.

The DMA program will also emphasize tools in digital arts and instructional technologies that open new avenues for artistic expression as well as audience outreach and interaction, Téllez says.

“Many current aspects of the arts are new within the past 15 years, and we want to embrace those new facets. This program will attend to the needs of the 21st-century artist and current threads in culture.”

The deadline to apply for fall 2013 is Feb. 1.

Originally published by Joanna Basile at on Dec. 13, 2012.

With a $400,000 grant from the , the University of Notre Dame has announced the launch of the Sacred Music Drama Project, a four-year, cross-disciplinary initiative designed to engage people more deeply with the power of shared creativity, performance and scholarship.

The project will draw on humanistic, artistic and sacred topics from a variety of musical traditions to develop new coursework and to stage the production of a major dramatic performance each year. The Mellon grant will also bring both eminent and emerging guest artists to campus and will fund the commission of a new work of sacred music drama at the end of the project.

“We seek to bridge several divides that too often prevent humanistic studies from achieving their highest levels of impact,” says , professor of conducting in the and concurrent professor of in the . “And the first of these divides is between scholarship and practice.

“We believe that the humanities are well-served when scholarship and research are directly and immediately performed and experienced, bringing the work of the classroom to life through the embodiment of the ideas studied in books and online.”

Making connections between people in different academic areas across the University is another key goal of the Sacred Music Drama Project, says Téllez, who will chair the faculty committee guiding the project and act as principal investigator for the grant and music director of the projects.

“Our interdisciplinary collaborations will serve to break down traditional boundaries not just between performers and scholars but also between faculty, undergraduates and graduate students,” she says.

“We hope to link the project to a range of courses that allow people across the humanities and the arts an opportunity to participate in each other’s ‘production processes’ and to test ideas that relate directly to their particular subject disciplines.”

Using a permeable studio model, the Sacred Music Drama Project will also allow participants to explore new modes of presentation by sharing their different perspectives and by combining traditional and new media.

“We hope the successful methodologies that emerge will assist both scholars and artists to discover new collaborative models,” Téllez says.

The Mellon Sacred Music Drama Committee will soon issue an open call for proposals and nominations. Notre Dame faculty from multiple disciplines will be invited to participate in the Sacred Music Drama Project, programming it into their curricula and connecting students with visiting performers, artists and scholars.

Studying and staging interdisciplinary works of sacred music drama will do more than connect people and programs on the Notre Dame campus, Téllez believes. The project aims to create and sustain new forms of interaction within the wider community as well by sharing musical experiences and disseminating research findings.

“We hope to establish best practices for dialogue, to produce new and excellent artistic works, to develop innovative technologies — and to leave a filmed documentation of these projects for professionals and students everywhere,” she says.

As a university, Notre Dame is particularly well-positioned to generate a national and even international impact with these initiatives, Téllez says.

“We aspire for the Mellon Sacred Music Drama Project to have a lasting influence on the campus culture and the broader community well beyond the University because we can connect with people on a range of topics that matter in today’s world.”

Originally published by Joanna Basile at on Oct. 3, 2012.

University of Notre Dame Professor has won the 2012 Distinguished Career Award from the Altruism, Morality and Social Solidarity section of the (ASA). The accolade, presented at the ASA’s annual meeting in August, recognizes a senior scholar who has made significant contributions to the section’s areas of focus over an extended period of time.

Smith says the acknowledgment is a true honor. “I think the award reflects a recognition among my colleagues that the various strands of my research and publishing on generosity, adolescents, theory of human personhood, religion and even political activism share a common theme that takes morality and self-giving seriously,” Smith says.

“A lot of social science does not do that, so it is good to have that recognized.”

Smith, the William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Sociology in Notre Dame’s , is a concurrent professor in the and director of both the and the .

He has won numerous awards for his research and publications. One of his most recent books, “What Is a Person?: Rethinking Humanity, Social Life, and the Moral Good From the Person Up,” was named one of Choice magazine’s Top 25 Academic Titles of 2011, won the 2010 Cheryl Frank Memorial Prize from the International Association for Critical Realism and received a 2010 PROSE Award honorable mention in the philosophy category at the American Publishers Awards for Professional and Scholarly Excellence.

Currently, Smith is completing research for the , a project funded by a $5 million grant from the John Templeton Foundation that brings together the often disconnected and diverse approaches to generosity in order to research it in all its forms. He plans to write at least one book based on his findings.

He is also completing the fourth and final wave of the National Study of Youth and Religion, a longitudinal panel study of teenagers and emerging adults. Research so far on this project has yielded multiple books, including “Souls in Transition: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of Emerging Adults” and “Soul Searching: The Religious and Spiritual Lives of American Teenagers.” In 2011, the Lilly Fellows Program in the Humanities and the Arts awarded “Souls in Transition” its Lilly Fellows Program Book Award.

Smith also recently received a planning grant from Lilly Endowment Inc. to do background work on a potential study on parenting in the United States.

“I will continue to do much the same kind of work I have already done,” he says, “but it is encouraging to have a sense that somebody out there is benefiting and appreciating.”

Originally published by Joanna Basile at on July 23, 2012.

, Hesburgh Professor of Catholic Theology at the University of Notre Dame, has been named a fellow of the (AAJR).

The AAJR is the oldest organization of Judaic scholars in North America, and fellows are nominated and elected by their peers. The group has approximately 100 members in the United States — and Anderson is one of a select few who is not Jewish.

“For me,” Anderson says, “to be treated in such a way by my Jewish colleagues while at a Catholic institution is the highest of honors given the importance I have placed on Jewish studies in my own life and career."

A member of the faculty in the ’ , Anderson specializes in biblical studies, with a focus on the Old Testament and the history of its interpretation, particularly in early Judaism. His most recent books include “” and “.”

“The Bible continues to shape and inform how Jews and Christians understand themselves in the modern world,” he says. “All my historical work is oriented toward that larger issue. I am never satisfied with the question ‘What did this text mean for its author?’ I also want to ask, ‘Who are we in light of this text?’ By that, I mean, how does the Bible function for contemporary Jewish and Christian theology?”

Anderson says most of his academic career has involved close work with Jewish sources and Jewish scholars. “I believe that the theological task of interpreting the Bible cannot be done well without a deep and abiding conversation with our Jewish peers.”

Formerly a professor at Harvard University, Anderson says he was initially concerned about his scholarly focus on Judaism once he had moved to a Catholic university.

“I worried whether my own work in Jewish studies would be taken less seriously,” Anderson says. “I have found that this has not been the case at all. Last year, I was awarded a prestigious Straus-Tikvah Fellowship in Jewish studies at New York University, and the reception of this award is more confirmation that my standing among my Jewish colleagues has, if anything, advanced since coming to this University.

“Jewish scholars in both the United States and in Israel tell me all the time of their high estimation of the Department of Theology at Notre Dame. Many think it is the best place to study Second Temple Judaism outside of Israel. Needless to say, such words of praise for what we are doing here are very gratifying.”

Originally published by Joanna Basile at on May 14, 2012.

, a professor in the at the University of Notre Dame, has been awarded a fellowship from the for her book project “Christian Perceptions of Muslim Identity in Medieval Spain.”

Among other things, her work will examine Christian attitudes toward Muslim dress and appearance and whether Muslims could engage in public religious expressions, teach Arabic to their children and maintain bathhouses, schools, cemeteries and other separate spaces important to the continuity of their culture and religion.

“Over the period that my study covers, Christian attitudes changed dramatically about all of these things,” Constable says.

Director of the University’s , Constable specializes in the social, economic and cultural history of the Mediterranean world, particularly the Iberian Peninsula. Her current research focuses on the time between the 12th and early 16th centuries.

“This was a period after Christians had conquered large areas that had once been in Muslim control, and so there were Muslims living under the administration of Christian rulers,” she says. “I am looking at how this relationship worked and at Christian understandings of what was needed for Muslim neighbors to remain Muslim.”

In the century or so after the conquests, she says, Christians generally accepted the distinctive Muslim religious practices and ways of life. But over time, Christian attitudes became less and less tolerant.

“Eventually, in Spain, the Christian administration decided it was no longer possible for Muslims and Christians to live together, and all Muslims were expelled from the Iberian Peninsula,” Constable says. “My research looks at how — and why — this change in attitude took place.”

Out of several thousand applications each year, the Guggenheim Foundation selects approximately 5 percent as fellows, based on exceptional academic achievements and on continued promise of exceptional work in the future. Two of this year’s winners are from Notre Dame — both of them medievalists.

In addition to Constable, Margot Fassler, Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy in the Department of Theology and co-director of the Sacred Music at Notre Dame initiative, for her research on Hildegard of Bingen.

“I think this is testimony to the strength of medieval studies at Notre Dame, to the strength of our medievalist faculty and to the support we get from the College of Arts and Letters,” Constable says.

Previous Guggenheim recipients with ties to the Medieval Institute include Kathryn Kerby-Fulton, Department of English; Ann Astell, Department of Theology; and John Van Engen, Department of History.

“Needless to say, I am delighted to receive this award,” Constable says. “It is an honor in itself, but I am also happy to have the time to spend on my research and writing.”

Originally published by Joanna Basile at on May 17, 2012.

Linguistic and cultural fluency is an increasingly important asset in business. To address the growing demand for professionals who can both understand and help shape the world market, the University of Notre Dame’s has created a new major in international economics.

The major combines substantial coursework in the with advanced training in language and culture, starting with French, Italian or Spanish. It will also provide students with the potential for overseas internships and specialized research projects.

“This program will be an attractive option for ambitious, sophisticated and savvy Notre Dame undergraduates seeking to prepare themselves for successful international careers,” said , Gilbert F. Schaefer Professor of Economics and chair of the Department of Economics.

These careers, he says, span the government and nonprofits as well as multinational corporations and more local entities that do business overseas or have international interests in areas such as research, law or even the arts.

“The new major’s blend of economics with foreign language and culture exemplifies the College’s liberal arts approach to nurturing the development of future global citizens,” says , professor and chair in the , who, together with Jensen, spearheaded the initiative for the new course of study.

Students in this major will take an introductory class called “Exploring International Economics,” plus a minimum of eight economics courses and seven to 10 intermediate and advanced courses in French, Italian or Spanish, including at least four that have a cultural, economic and/or historical emphasis.

Under the guidance of faculty mentors, all international economics majors will also complete a capstone research project that integrates the analytical aspects of economics with the linguistic and cultural aspects of a Romance language.

The course offerings and program initiatives in the new major, Cachey says, are designed to help students understand how aesthetic and cultural categories and value judgments are shaped by — and, in turn, influence — economic trends and political conditions, whether they go on to graduate school or immediately enter the business world.

“We will produce graduates,” he says, “who will become leaders and global citizens in a world that is increasingly interconnected from an economic point of view and requires individuals with a specialized knowledge of local languages and cultures to navigate the uneven terrain of the world’s environmental, cultural, social, economic and political geographies.”

Both Cachey and Jensen say they intend to expand the international economics major beyond their two departments, and anticipate collaborating with other foreign language and culture programs in the College, including Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and Korean.

“The new international economics major has tremendous potential for our majors in the says that department’s chair, , who notes that many East Asian languages students already choose to double major in either economics or business. “We hope to offer this new option to them soon.”

The new major’s distinctive approach will not only serve students well, Jensen says, it can also make a difference in the marketplace as the College’s international economics majors move into leadership positions in their careers.

“This new major has a direct correlation to the Notre Dame’s commitment to ‘constructive and critical engagement with the whole of human culture,’” he says, quoting from the University’s mission statement.

Originally published by Joanna Basile at on June 11, 2012.

What do children know about mathematics before they start learning it in school? How do external factors like language, education and culture affect children’s understanding? What is the best way to structure an environment so they have the building blocks needed for success in math?

These are just some of the questions Notre Dame psychologist seeks to answer in her research, for which she recently received a three-year, $565,000 grant from the (IES).

“The development of mathematical thinking presents a paradox,” says the Mary Hesburgh Flaherty and James F. Flaherty Assistant Professor of Psychology, whose scholarship focuses on , specifically mathematical cognition.

“On one hand, young children and even infants have been shown to have a surprisingly sophisticated understanding of abstract math concepts,” she says. “On the other hand, math is a notoriously difficult subject to learn in school, with many children and adults failing to achieve basic competence.”

This is McNeil’s second IES award. In 2007, she received a four-year grant totaling more than $750,000 to determine whether modifications to traditional arithmetic practice could improve children’s understanding of mathematical equivalence.

The new funding will allow McNeil to build on what she learned during the first study in order to “develop and test a comprehensive intervention that is affordable, effective at producing mastery, and easy for teachers and parents to administer in schools, after-school programs and homes.”

Her goal, she says, is to create a program that has the potential to have “real and lasting benefits for children’s mathematical achievement and algebra readiness in the long term.”

To further support her work, McNeil has also recently been awarded a five-year CAREER grant from the (NSF) worth approximately $750,000. CAREER grants are NSF’s “most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education, and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations.”

As part of the NSF grant, McNeil will conduct a longitudinal study to see if a better understanding of math equivalence in the second grade leads to greater success in higher grades, especially algebra readiness in the sixth grade.

As an undergraduate, McNeil planned to become a doctor and was double majoring in chemistry and psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. One of her professors suggested she build her medical school application resume by working in a research lab on campus, and she found her way into one focused on cognitive development and communication.

“I developed a passion for cognitive development research—I couldn’t get enough of it—so I abandoned my idea of going to medical school and instead chose to pursue a Ph.D. in psychology,” she says.

Inspired by that experience, McNeil now challenges her students in the to discover their own academic passions. She encourages them to find a “big question” that intrigues them and then works to provide the tools and guidance they need to pursue an answer.

“I feel strongly that students need to have one-on-one attention from faculty members,” McNeil says. “It gives them the opportunity to bounce ideas off and ask questions of an expert in the field. This type of intellectual discourse puts them in the position to eventually make a real contribution to the field.

“Students in my lab also get to be involved in every aspect of research, from conceptualization to dissemination.”

Through all this work on her own scholarly projects and with her students, McNeil hopes she can help parents and teachers determine the best ways to structure each child’s mathematical education so that all children can learn to be successful in school—and beyond.

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Originally published by Joanna Basile at on January 06, 2012.

, professor of French in the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Romance Languages and Literatures, is organizing a series of events to honor Swiss philosopher and writer Jean–Jacques Rousseau’s 300th birthday and stimulate a cross–disciplinary discussion on social justice and human dignity.

The project, called “,” will be part of the curriculum for more than a dozen courses throughout the and the and will feature both guest lectures and an Amnesty International photography exhibit on poverty and human rights that includes portraits from Mexico, Egypt, Nigeria, India and Macedonia.

Douthwaite says she and a student chanced upon the exhibit, called “DIGNITÉ,” on its opening day during a research trip to Paris in 2010. “We were captivated by the images, the stories on the walls,” she says.

Knowing that others at Notre Dame would find the collection just as moving, Douthwaite approached the curator and the photographers who were at the opening and convinced them to make the Snite Museum of Art the exhibit’s first stop in the United States.

“Since finishing my recent book project on revolutionary France,” she says, “I’ve been thinking a lot about human rights: the origin of the concept, its progress and obstacles. And so gradually, I realized that I had a concept: Rousseau, pioneer of humanitarian thought, would marry ‘DIGNITÉ’ and the 2012 tricentennial.”

Visiting lecturers for the series include Professor Christie McDonald from Harvard University, who will focus on Rousseau and gender studies; Professor Christopher Kelly from Boston College, who will discuss political theory of “On the Social Contract”; Professor Jason Neidleman from University of LaVerne, who will lecture on Rousseau and religious liberty; and Professor Serge Margel from L’École des hautes études en sciences sociales in Paris, who will talk about Rousseau and moral philosophy. Two of the “DIGNITÉ” photographers have also been invited to speak about photojournalism and global political activism: Johann Rousselot (India) and Philippe Brault (Egypt).

According to Douthwaite, faculty throughout the University are planning to incorporate the exhibit into classes they will teach in spring. Those participating are from the College of Arts and Letters’ Program of Liberal 91��Ƶ, Ph.D. in Literature Program, and departments of American studies, , English, political science and history, as well as faculty from the and the Law 91��Ƶ’s Center for Civil and Human Rights.

“The demonstrable commitment to social justice and poverty studies at Notre Dame make this kind of work take flight here,” she says.

During summer 2011, Douthwaite worked with two French students, Lea Malewitz and Lauren Wester, to prepare the exhibit with colleagues in Notre Dame’s and translate into English the original French exhibit catalogue, Dignité: Droits humains et pauvreté.

Douthwaite and the students also selected excerpts from Rousseau’s texts and paired them with images from the exhibit to create study guides for students and the faculty who plan to incorporate discussions of the project into their curricula.

“The study guides do not aim to canonize Rousseau,” Douthwaite says. “On the contrary, we aim to put Rousseau’s work and thought into a dialectical kind of questioning with recent thinkers in political science, gender studies, and religious history.”

Douthwaite says including students in her work through projects such as this is a priority for her as both a scholar and a teacher. “The collaboration we have undertaken this summer has been energizing and, I think, has opened the students’ eyes to some new avenues for professional development where they will be able to use their expertise in the future.”

Malewitz, a senior double majoring in French and Arabic studies, says her work on the project was an invaluable educational experience that helped her fine-tune her language skills.

“This was the first time I had ever done any translating,” she says. “Usually in language classes, we focus on producing our own language. I found this project enhanced my vocabulary both in words I had never seen before and in thinking about the shades of meaning of words I already know. The challenge of conveying exactly what the author meant was really enriching.”

The students have also been able to get involved in other aspects of the exhibit, from choosing the artwork and texts that will be displayed to designing the layout of the room, says Wester, a 2011 Notre Dame graduate who completed her undergraduate degree in French and psychology and is now working toward a master’s in French at the University.

Wester says she was particularly eager to get involved with the project because it built on her previous humanitarian work as a volunteer document translator for francophone refugees at Freedom House in Detroit.

“First of all, I hope that visitors learn to appreciate their own living conditions after viewing the miserable situations that the people in ‘DIGNITÉ’ are subjected to,” Wester says. “Secondly, I’d like people to recognize that these terrible conditions still exist throughout the world. Making the Notre Dame and South Bend community aware of these injustices is one of the most important things this exhibit can do.”

In addition to conveying a powerful message about human rights and Rousseau’s work, the project demonstrates how relevant French studies are in today’s world, Douthwaite says.

“With our linguistic expertise, the students and I have provided valuable assistance to Amnesty International in France,” she says. “With our historical and literary abilities, we also have been able to conceptualize linkages between past and present—between Rousseau’s prescience in ‘The Discourse on the Origins of Inequality’ and today’s urgent call for a more just economy.”

DIGNITY will be on display in the Snite Museum from Jan. 15 until March 11. The exhibit—along with the translated document Douthwaite, Wester and Malewitz created—will then move on to Chicago.

“As the DIGNITY exhibit launches its American tour,” Douthwaite says, “it is gratifying to know that our catalogue, and the memory of the leadership role of Notre Dame students and faculty, will go along with it.”

Originally published by Joanna Basile at on December 01, 2011.

, Keough-Hesburgh Professor of Music History and Liturgy and co-director of the at the University of Notre Dame, has won the biennial ACE/Mercers’ International Book Award.

The award from (ACE) recognizes Fassler’s 2010 book “” as “an outstanding contribution to the dialogue between religious faith and the visual arts.”

A detailed history of the Cathedral of Our Lady of Chartres in France, the book draws on local histories, letters, obituaries, chants, liturgical sources and reports of miracles to explore the cult of the Virgin of Chartres and its development in the 11th and 12th centuries. The book offers a detailed study of the West façade, interpreting the art in the context of liturgical and musical understandings.

“I was shocked to be a finalist, let alone to win, and very, very grateful,” Fassler says of the award, which she hopes will encourage more scholars to invest time in interdisciplinary research.

“There are no shortcuts,” she says. “You have to learn another field, and then you have to learn how to combine knowledge from two fields in creative yet responsible ways.”

Fassler says her inspiration for “The Virgin of Chartres” stemmed from an earlier book she wrote on the music and liturgy of the Abbey of St. Victor in France. The abbey was destroyed during the French Revolution, and Fassler says she was heartbroken that she could not personally experience the beauty of a place she had come to know and love through her research.

For subsequent work, Fassler looked for inspiration among buildings she could visit in person. She says she was immediately taken with Our Lady of Chartres, which has a magnificent 12th-century façade that incorporates sculpture and glass.

“I was very powerfully drawn into the ways that the music I knew would sound in my head when I looked at the art,” Fassler says of the cathedral. “Of course, it is designed to stimulate the memory, to make the glass and sculpture sound. The brilliant ways the exegetical understandings are embodied in the portal, with various uses of perspective, still continue to amaze me after all these years.

“I think the most surprising thing of all was realizing, about three years into the book, that the arts and related music constituted a giant history-making enterprise and that the identity of a community depended on knowing it, on learning to negotiate its meanings.”

A musicologist and liturgical scholar in the , Fassler is on the faculty in both the and the .

“Over the last 15 years, I have become increasingly interested in the intersection of music and art in a liturgical context,” she says. “Although I always focus on music, I am a committed interdisciplinarian. I work on music, religion and art—and I make documentary films for teaching about these subjects.”

Currently, Fassler is completing work on a textbook and a companion guide on medieval music, as well as a book on Hildegard of Bingen, which will include digital modeling, and bringing her compositions and the illuminations for one of her treatises together in an interdisciplinary study. “She demonstrates the importance of music as a theological discipline.”

Fassler is also organizing two conferences, one at the Notre Dame Centre in London, which will focus on the cantor-historian in the Middle Ages, and another featuring the compositions of James MacMillan, who will be in residence on Notre Dame’s main campus for the Feast of the Holy Cross and the Seven Sorrows in September.

Over spring break, she is escorting a class of Notre Dame undergraduate students to Chartres to learn more about the cathedral, the people and processes of reading the arts theologically.

Originally published by Joanna Basile at on December 22, 2011.

During the spring semester, students studying abroad at the University of Notre Dame’s brought the mission of the University to life in a local school play that was far from the typical gymnasium fare.

Led by , a professor in Notre Dame’s Department of , the undergraduates helped bring to the stage the stories of migrant families as seen from the perspective of the children at Sacred Heart Primary 91��Ƶ.

“The boundaries between culture and country were completely dislodged,” student Felicia Aguirre says. “Sometimes, in a country where everything feels unfamiliar—like the migrants experiencing their new homes—all a person has to do is sit and talk to others. Despite language, dress and cultural customs, humanity stays consistent in many different ways, such as the way in which we relate to others.”

The purpose of the theater class, “Migration Issues in Contemporary British Theatre: Theatre and Social Concerns,” was to give students an “appreciation of theater as an agent of social change,” says Juan, who has taught courses in South Bend in which students worked with the community on issues such as immigration and juvenile detention.

This past spring, with the help of the , students in his London class were able to work with children at Sacred Heart to put their experiences into words—and live performance. The Catholic school is located in Battersea, an ethnically diverse district in south London, and so brings together myriad races, cultures, and ethnicities. For approximately 75 percent of the students, English is a second language. In this one school, Juan says, “there are 80 languages spoken and 120 nationalities of origin.”

“We may be in London,” Aguirre says, “but we get to see Italy, Africa, the Philippines, etc., through the eyes of children.”

The first-hand accounts were woven into a play, directed by Juan, titled “Child of the Migrant Moon.” With students from his class, the children and their families acted out their personal migration stories, lending a powerful authenticity to the joys, challenges, and troubles they faced as people living on the edge of society.

The play energized and brought together the local community, and was featured in the local Battersea newspaper. This reinforces how Juan feels both about teaching and learning—that it does not stop at the classroom door.

“The mothers said they would like to perform the piece again, and Jared Brading, the school headmaster, said he is thinking of doing a repeat for the city council next year,” Juan says. “Indeed, I have come out of this experience—as my class has—with fond memories and, even more so, a new knowledge not only to keep for ourselves but to contribute to the world.”

, associate professor in the Department of Irish Language and Literature at the University of Notre Dame, has won an award for his book, “Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge: Darwin, an Athbheochan, agus smaointeoireacht na hEorpa (The Irish Fin de Siècle: Darwin, the Language Revival, and European Intellectual Thought),” from the American Conference for Irish 91��Ƶ.

The award, Duais Leabhar Taighde na Bliana Fhoras na Gaeilge, is bestowed for the best book of the year written in the Irish language.

Published by Cló Iar-Chonnachta in 2009, “Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge” is a study of the Gaelic revival caused by events at the end of the 19th century, such as Darwinism, race extermination, cultural decline, degeneration and cultural nationalism. It also examines the influences that these events had on dialect, fonts, grammar, cultural criticism, literary production and orthography.

“I’ve always been puzzled by the revivalists’ presumed intellectual isolation from mainstream 19th-century European thought,” Ó Conchubhair said. “The idea behind this book was to see what overlap, if any, existed between European intellectual movements—Darwinism in particular—and fin de siècle Ireland.

“What it ended up being was a new way of seeing and reading the revival—less in terms of cultural nationalism and more as an Irish response to European fears of racial decline, cultural degeneration and the emerging racial theory.”

The award committee members described Ó Conchubhair’s research as “important and original scholarship, a pioneering work, a powerful and readable book, and a valuable resource for scholars interested in this area… It is expected that this work will inspire a great many other scholars to follow his lead.”

“Fin de Siècle na Gaeilge” also won a first-place prize in Ireland’s 2009 Oireachtas na Gaeilge Literary Competition, the most prestigious Irish language literary competition in the country.

Ó Conchubhair’s additional research interests are 19th- and 20th-century Ireland, the Irish revival, contemporary Irish-language fiction, and Irish language among the diaspora. He is the author and editor of many other publications, including “WHY IRISH? Irish Language and Literature in Academia; Rebel Cork’s Fighting Story, 1916–1921; and Gearrscéalta Ár Linne.”

The award ceremony took place at the annual meeting of the American Conference for Irish 91��Ƶ last month.