In this episode of the ISM Fellows Podcast, Dr. Peter Boudreau sheds light on time in Byzantium through his work on Byzantine calendar icons. Dr. Boudreau also discusses the complexity of Byzantine time, the relationship between images and text, and the future of studying Byzantium ..read more

In this episode, Dr. Cory Hunter speaks with Sindy Yang (MAR ‘25) about his research on gospel music. They also discuss how his background training in music performance, religion, and theology brings innovation to his methodologies as a scholar. What results is a freshness brought to the discipline of musicology at large, and new ways in which these methodologies and approaches impact the broader scope of interdisciplinary studies of music, religion, and theology ..read more

In this episode of the ISM Fellows Podcast, Dr. Samantha Slaubaugh offers insights into her work on Douceline of Digne as a rare paradigm of liturgical practice among the Beguines of Marseilles. Dr. Slaubaugh also discusses the way in which Douceline of Digne, through her unique practice of liturgy, is situated in her medieval community that reveals the unexpected fragility of her sociopolitical circumstances ..read more

As an ethnographer of art, Dr. Katie Dimmery’s work focuses on the ways in which communities and identities are shaped by artistic ritual in the southwest region of China. Her research attends to the practices of indigenous ritualists and how these practices are situated in regional ethnic and social politics. This conversation traces the history of one particular valley in southwest China and how aesthetics and artistic traditions are being enacted today by the people who live there ..read more

Dr. Ephrem Aboud Ishac discusses his work with ancient Syriac manuscripts, the ways the church and scholarly communities can benefit each other, and the challenges facing the preservation of these ancient texts ..read more

Jon Bullock, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music, joins Ariana Hones (M.Div ’25) for a conversation on how radio is used as a tool for shaping Kurdish identity. Using the lens of ethnomusicology and the sacred, Jon discusses the impacts of colonialism and technologies of sound, such recording and broadcasting on Kurdish music ..read more

The African musicologist Jean Ngoya Kidula talks about the multi-layered musical and religious landscape of Kenya, a crossroad of musical influences from Tanzania, Zimbabwe, the Congos, and South Africa with Ben Bond, a Master of Divinity student at Yale Institute of Sacred Music and Yale Divinity School ..read more

Dr. Jeremiah Lockwood joins the Fellows Podcast to chat about the sounds and stars of the cantorial golden age. He also talks about keeping busy — and keeping up— with a rich and varied life as both academic and professional musician ..read more

Grounded in themes of tribulation, redemption, and hope, ISM Fellow and theater professor Dr. Ron Jenkins joins Ariana Hones (M.Div. ’23) in conversation on the transformational power of Dante’s Divine Comedies inside prisons. In this episode, Dr. Jenkins discusses his course, Gospel, Rap, and Social Justice, and his use of Dante’s poetry to create theater pieces with currently and formerly incarcerated people. He states, “bringing Dante and art into prison is a way of humanizing a dehumanizing situation.” Dante serves as both a mirror reflecting the injustices in our prison systems as well as ..read more

In his interview with ISM M.A.R. student Madeleine Hutchins ’23, ISM Fellow and religious ethicist Ryan Darr pulls no punches in talking global climate crisis: “…we’re entering a mass extinction event, which would be, from what scientists have found about life on Earth, the sixth in Earth’s history — and the first caused by one species in particular.” Darr is a Postdoctoral Associate in Religion, Ecology, and Expressive Culture, and from 2019 to 2022 was a Postdoctoral Research Associate in Philosophy and Religion at the Princeton University Center for Human Values. He holds a Ph.D. in Religio ..read more