Greetings from St Andrews! We trust you’ve had a lovely summer. It’s been lovely here, one of the warmest summers ever recorded in Scotland. I spent much of the summer with my boys, hiking the Fife Coastal Trail and building sand castles. I also managed to visit Islay – the southernmost island of the Inner Hebrides known for its many distilleries – and also Vienna, for the International Meeting of the Society for Biblical Literature. Being in Vienna was a real treat, giving me the opportunity to visit not only its famous cafes, but also the Kunsthistorisches Museum, the Leopold Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, Kunst Haus Wien, the Ephesus Museum and the Papyrus Museum. The Bruegel room at the Kunsthistorisches, and the Schiele collection at the Leopold were the real standouts for me. I came home with several new catalogues, including one that might be of interest to Transpositions readers: Haakon Mehren, Munch through New Eyes: His Holy Universe.
My co-editor, Denny Kinlaw, spent his summer in Boston after attending the David Foster Wallace Conference in May, and getting hitched in June. We’re glad to have him and his wife, Associate Producer with the Peabody Award-winning Kirk Documentary Group, back in St Andrews.
Former Guest Contributor, now Guest Contributions Editor, Caitlin Washburn is, we’re happy to say, here to stay. Having finished her MLitt, she is now pursuing a PhD with Dr Judith Wolfe who is also new to St Andrews and will be writing a post for us in November. We’re looking forward to hearing more from both Caitlin and Dr Wolfe, and Caitlin is looking forward to hearing more from you! If you’re interested in writing a post, check out our guidelines.
Also new to Transpositions is Jon Greenaway, a St Andrews alum and PhD Candidate at Manchester Metropolitan University working on Gothic theology. Jon will be one of our new Regular Contributors, and we’re truly looking forward to hearing more from him, and through him, the crew at Manchester.
In addition to the team here in St Andrews, we’re looking forward to hearing from our Visiting Scholars and Artists in Residence. Alfonse Borysewicz will kick things off for the Artists in Residence series with “Summer Garden,” a reflection on a recent visit to the Cloisters museum and gardens. Then, in October, we’ll be hearing from Samuel Ernest who interviewed his sister, Miriam, who dances for Suzanne Farrell’s company in Washington DC. There is, in other words, lots of good stuff ahead.
Our desire, as always, is to provide an entry of sorts into the conversation already taking place here in St Andrews, and to direct you to other resources that might be helpful along the way. Along these lines, we continue to update the ITIA Publications page, the most recent addition being the proceedings from ITIA’s 2012 conference, Theatrical Theology: Explorations in Performing the Faith, edited by Wesley Vander Lugt and Trevor Hart.
Finally, we wish to congratulate our ITIA colleagues, Phil Tallon and Sara Schumacher, who recently accepted teaching posts, Phil at Houston Baptist University (Houston, TX, USA) and Sara at St Mellitus College (London, UK). Best wishes as you continue the conversation in these new locales!
Christopher R. Brewer
