Signs of Change: Transformations of Christian Traditions and their Representation in the Arts, 1000-2000 focuses on the changing relationships between what gradually emerged as the Arts and Christianity, the latter term covering both a stream of ideas and its institutions. The book as a whole is addressed to a general academic audience concerned with issues of cultural history, while the individual essays are also intended as scholarly contributions within their own fields. A collaborative effort by twenty-five European and American scholars representing disciplines ranging from aesthetics to the history of art and architecture, from literature, music and the theatre to classics, church history, and theology, the volume is an interdisciplinary study of intermedial phenomena, generally in larger cultural and intellectual contexts. The focus of topics extends from single concrete objects to sets of abstract concepts and values, and from a single moment in time to an entire millennium. While Signs of Change acknowledges the importance of synthesizing efforts essential to hermeneutically informed scholarship, in order to counterbalance generalized historical narratives with detailed investigations, broad accounts are juxtaposed with specialized research projects. The deliberately unchronological grouping of contributions underlines the effort to further discussion about methodologies for writing cultural history.

Protestant theology and culture are known for a reserved, at times skeptical, attitude to the use of art and aesthetic forms of expression in a religious context. In Transcendence and Sensoriness, this attitude is analysed and discussed both theoretically and through case studies considered in a broad theological and philosophical framework of religious aesthetics. Nordic scholars of theology, philosophy, art, music, and architecture, discuss questions of transcendence, the human senses, and the arts in order to challenge established perspectives within the aesthetics of religion and theology.

This book adopts a multidisciplinary and novel approach to the historical evolution of identities in Europe - identities connected with regions as a multi-layered and processual key concept in dialogue and/or conflict with the emerging nation-state. In the book, historical disciplines meet with anthropology, human ge-ography and cultural studies to discuss how regional identities of various kinds were created, challenged and redefined; how they were experienced and expressed and to what extent they produced feelings of attachment. Spatial, social, cultural and political manifestations of identities in Europe are historical phenomena. Their changes and forms help us understand the essential traits of European societies, in-cluding the development of differences and similarities, degrees of attachment and dynamics of physical and mental borders. Drawing on a wide range of sources - from historiography to in-terviews, hagiographical texts, images and songs - expressing evolving identities, this book presents an innovative approach to understanding identity formation in Europe.

Proceedings from The Nordic Festival and Conference of Gregorian Chant

Lutheran theology and religious practice re-shaped traditions from the ritual heritage of the Medieval Latin Church. Throughout the cultural history of European Lutheran areas, what came to be seen as 'the arts' may be discussed in the light of (changing) Lutheran traditions: the cultural heritage of Martin Luther. This volume presents a collection of nine essays on Lutheran traditions and the arts within the 500 years since the Reformation, as a special issue of the journal 'Transfiguration' in connection with the Tenth International Congress for Luther Research hosted at the Department of Church History, University of Copenhagen.

Articles centred on the use made by European nations of medieval texts and other artefacts to define their history and origins. The 19th century was a time of fierce national competition for the "ownership" of medieval documents and the legitimation of national histories. This volume contains papers dealing with the attempts of French scholars to claim English documents (and vice versa), as also of disputes between Scandinavian and British scholars, and Dutch, German and Italian scholars. Regionalism is also a repeated topic, with claims made for the autonomy of Frisia within the Netherlands, and Languedoc within France. Other papers deal with the rediscovery of medieval music, with early American attempts to redirect the course of 20th century poetry by appeal to medieval precedent, and with the continuing vitality of Dante's Divina Commedia (especially the Inferno) in the light of 20th century experience. The volume as a whole sheds new light on the whole process of appropriating history, which remains a vital and contentioustopic, both inside and outside the academic world. CONTRIBUTORS: MARK BURDE, MAGNUS FJALLDAL, ALPITA DE JONG, ANNETTE KREUZIGER-HERR, NILS HOLGER PETERSEN, RACHEL DRESSLER, KARL FUGELS, WILLIAM QUINN, PETER CHRISTENSEN

Lutheran theology and religious practice re-shaped traditions from the ritual heritage of the Medieval Latin Church. Throughout the cultural history of European Lutheran areas, what came to be seen as "the arts" may be discussed in the light of changing Lutheran traditions: the cultural heritage of Martin Luther. This volume presents a collection of 9 essays on Lutheran traditions and the arts within the 500 years since the Reformation, as a special issue of the journal Transfiguration. This issue has been planned in connection with the Tenth International Congress for Luther Research hosted at the Department of Church History, University of Copenhagen.

"Transfiguration" offers discussions of the relationship between art forms and Christianity in the European tradition from the early Church until today. The journal provides a much-needed venue for a broader theological forum that extends beyond the traditional boundaries of religious art scholarship. Looking beyond the contexts in which religious art works are typically situated, it aims to engage this art as a mode of expression that exists in the space between religious practice and aesthetic display. The present issue includes chapters on Luther's reflection on the life of a Christian, the motif of "imitatio Christi," the relationship between image and body, Jesus as a symbolist, and Nietzsche's "The Antichrist".""

In 1993 and 1994, The Centre for Christianity and the Arts at the Institute of Church History, University of Copenhagen, arranged symposia with liturgy and the arts in the Middle Ages as the uniting theme. Scholars, with different professional backgrounds and from different European countries, as well as from the USA, presented papers of which 11 are collected and published in this book.

The concepts of genre and ritual are central for the overall occupation with the relationship between the history of the arts and the history of Christianity in Western Culture. This special issue of the journal TRANSfiguration sheds light on the complex relationship between the two broad and difficult terms, genre and ritual, within the cultural history of Europe. This volumea collection of 15 essayswas planned on the basis of the first annual international conference at the Centre for the Study of the Cultural Heritage of Medieval Rituals, University of Copenhagen.

Text in Danish.