Vocal Theol: Prayer, Eloc & Li

Catalog description

Taught by GTU. This course is co-taught by Drew Khalouf and John Klentos. This course will explore how Christian prayers communicate meanings through their composition and performance. Students will work with instructors to analyze prayer texts' structure and theology and then to vocalize the prayers in a way that creates meanings within a worshiping community. Textual analysis will engage the Left Brain by considering constituent elements, organizational strategies, and the theological message/s encoded in prayer texts. Students will engage their Right Brains by exploring how the techniques of good speech allow the words of the English language to be used to their greatest effect, using the Presider's voice to shape the wounds of words in ways that most clearly convey the prayers' basic meaning, but with sounds used in specific ways that reinforce the conceptual and sensual essence of the prayers' deeper theological meaning. Students will learn how to discover the theological dynamics contained within prayer texts (drawn from a spectrum of times and liturgical traditions) and then progress to communicating theology effectively by utilizing specific vocal tools to imbue each word as fully as possible with psychological sound-triggers that fill it as full of meaning and captivating visceral impact as possible. Students will be evaluated on (1) three written analyses of prayer texts, (2) four in-class Vocal Exegeses of the analyzed prayer texts, (3) a final, synthetic reflection on how the student integrated textual analysis and vocalization techniques to reveal the literary beauty and theological richness of specific prayer texts. [12 max enrollment]