Divinity school

School Notes: Yale Divinity School
July/August 2018

Gregory E. Sterling | http://divinity.yale.edu

YDS professor among Yale faculty named to AAAS

John J. Collins, Holmes Professor of Old Testament Criticism and Interpretation, was among three Yale faculty members elected to membership in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. A native of Ireland, Collins has published many books and articles on the subjects of apocalypticism, wisdom, Hellenistic Judaism, and the Dead Sea Scrolls. His course What Are Biblical Values? is a favorite of Divinity School students. The class explores hot-button social issues in which the Bible is frequently invoked today, juxtaposing contemporary rhetoric with the actual text and its context. Collins’s numerous books include The Dead Sea Scrolls: A Biography and a work in progress on biblical values and their applicability to public life today. He holds honorary degrees from the University of Zurich and University College Dublin.

Artist finds inspiration at Yale’s Landscape Lab

Susan Ernst ’18MAR channels her spirituality and devotion to the natural world into making art. She spent this academic year as artist-in-residence at the Landscape Lab, a center on Yale’s West Campus that features an urban farm and supports a range of projects intended to promote a sustainable future. The Divinity School allows MAR students to participate in a supervised ministry—an internship with a theological component—and Ernst thought that the Landscape Lab’s farm, garden of medicinal plants, woods, and guiding philosophy of experimentation provided an excellent setting to create art in dialogue with nature and help others forge a connection with the living world. Ernst uses a process called ecoprinting, which involves directly applying plants to paper and textiles, drawing colors, shapes, and patterns from the leaves. “The plants themselves tell their story,” says Ernst, who was enrolled in the school’s new religion and ecology program.

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