Fassler Publishes New Book on Hildegard of Bingen’s Musical Compositions in their Cosmic Contexts
Keough Hesburgh Professor Emerita and Fellow of the Medieval Institute Margot Fassler’s new book Cosmos, Liturgy and the Arts in the Twelfth Century: Hildegard’s Illuminated Scivias (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2023) is an interdisicplinary study with sacred music and its liturgical meanings at the heart of its arguments. The book also has two chapters on Hildegard’s music drama, the Ordo Virtutum, and shows the many ways that Hildegard used sets of interlocking melodic phrases to build dramatic tension and demonstrate theological understandings regarding the meanings of penance in the epic human journey. Fassler suggests that the unique illuminated manuscript, the only one with paintings produced in Hildegard’s scriptorium and during her lifetime, has Volmar, Hildegard’s provost and friend, as its main scribe. If this is true, then the famous Hildegard portrait, the first “selfie” of a composer, is of both the author and of the scribe of that particular manuscript copy.
Originally published by sacredmusic.nd.edu on January 13, 2023.
atLatest Research
- Literacy scholar Ernest Morrell elected to American Academy of Arts & SciencesErnest Morrell, the Coyle Professor of Literacy Education at the University of Notre Dame, has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, one of the nation’s oldest learned societies and independent policy research centers. Morrell was one of the 250 members of the newest AAAS class announced today. Other notable names among the group include filmmaker George Clooney, Apple CEO Tim Cook, novelist Jhumpa Lahiri, and Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times columnist and 1993 Notre Dame alumnus Carlos Lozada.
- Notre Dame faculty fight malaria resurgence in BangladeshBetween 2008 and 2020, districts across the country of Bangladesh saw a 93% reduction in malaria cases. Today, as the world reflects on the World…
- Anthropologist's research shows there’s no ‘one size fits all’ when it comes to addressing men’s health issues globallyAt a time when health resources are at a premium and need to be wisely allocated, health professionals must find points within men’s lives when it makes the most sense to intervene and advocate for preventive care for promoting better health outcomes. Life transitions such as marriage and fatherhood are often pivotal and crucial intervention points. But just like every man is different, health concerns across global communities differ as well. Research from the University of Notre Dame finds that not all life transitions produce the same health results, and not all men’s global health policies should look the same from one country to another.
- How postdoctoral researcher Seth Koren makes sense of the universe’s mysteries using physicsBillions of years ago, the very early universe was incredibly hot and dense — conditions could only be described as extreme. Today, physicists attempt to recreate these conditions using enormous accelerators, detectors and colliders to get particles up to the high energy that existed long ago.…
- From the army to anthropology: Postdoc’s path to peace-and-justice researchHelal Khan’s path to becoming an anthropologist who researches peace and justice has taken him all over the world. In his home country of Bangladesh, Khan was an army officer stationed along the Myanmar…
- Notre Dame–IBM Technology Ethics Lab Awards Nearly $1,000,000 to Build Collaborative Research Projects between Teams of Notre Dame Faculty and International ScholarsThe Notre Dame–IBM Technology Ethics Lab announced today that it has selected 17 projects to receive almost $1,000,000 in funding for 2024 through its third annual Call for Proposals (CFP). Each year, the Lab releases a CFP for the purpose…