Humanities Teacher Award winner Dr. Jonathan Koefoed (Belhaven University) will present his public lecture, “The “Instructor and Inspirer”: Christian Romantic Contributions to Nineteenth-Century American Art and Education.” This presentation will take place on Belhaven’s campus in Jackson. Reception to follow.
The Transcendentalists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau are often seen as the torchbearers for Romanticism in nineteenth-century America. This talk will highlight an alternative discourse, American Christian Romanticism, and explain how certain nineteenth-century American artists and intellectuals self-consciously fused Romantic ideals with Trinitarian Christianity. While contributing much to the dissemination of Romantic ideas in America, these professors, writers, and artists also provided timeless reflections on the nature and purpose of art and education. These latter contributions will be explored with a view toward a wide and multi-disciplinary university audience.
