Sabrina Jones
Staff Writer
This summer, while many Pepperdine students flock to exotic locations to enjoy the luxurious sun, several of their professors will be occupying the rooms and halls of Pepperdine to learn of ways to expand their quest for higher learning.
Three seminars, all over the course of various weeks of summer, will feature faculty-led discussion of issues that tap into the core of Pepperdine’s educational goals and values.
The first of these seminars will cover “The Character and Practices of the Intellectual Life.” Running from May 8-12, this series will explore Pepperdine’s emphasis on vocation affecting career development. Moderating the seminars will be a professor of Great Books Don Marshall and a professor of history Jeff Zalar.
In an online interview with Professor Marshall, he emphasized the importance he places on vocational reflection. “As Pepperdine pursues its mission to be a Christian university of the highest academic excellence, it’s important that we think about our teaching, our personal lives, and our scholarly study and writing from a Christian perspective” Marshall said.
The second of the three seminars is called “The Image of Christ in Art.” From May 22-24, participants will analyze the ways that Jesus has been portrayed and characterized in art. Participants will take a final cumulative trip to the Norton Simon Museum in Pasadena. Looking at Byzantine Era, this seminar will examine they ways in which Jesus has been understood by artists. Also participants will examine more recent works like those of Giotto and Fra Angelico, Holbein, Rubens, Rembrandt, and Michelangelo and contemporary artist Bill Viola. Consulting outside texts, faculty members will chronicle the ways Jesus is represented in art.
This seminar, led by Professor of Great Books, Paul J. Contino and the Museum Director at the Center for the Arts, Michael Zakian will utilize both of their very different, but interconnected fields of interest. Literature and art are ways in which an artist, either writer or painter, can capture the identity of a subject and the attitude towards that very subject. The images of Christ depicted in art vary based on the perspective of the painter. The purpose of this seminar is to further discuss and explore ancient and modern depictions of Christ through the social commentary provided by art.
The third and final seminar will take place from June 5-9 and focus on “Reflecting on Faith and the Lives of the Professional School Academic.” Led by Dr. Darryl Tippens and Dr. John Mooney at the West Los Angeles Graduate Campus, this seminar explores the integration of faith into the practice of teaching, learning, community service, spiritual lives, and supplementary research of faculty members. Submitted 06-12-2006