Studies – Spring 2024 issue
PRESS RELEASE
13 MARCH 2024
On the scale of things, in today’s violent and volatile world, one could justifiably wonder whether access to the arts and the freedom to participate in the cultural life of the community could be considered a human rights priority. However, if we consider that artistic expression is an integral part of the way we imagine and experience our life, interact with our environment and conduct our relationships, then we can understand the transformative power of the arts. And that if artistic expression and experience become too detached from everyday life, society loses the ability to evaluate, to critique in an imaginative way and to envisage an alternative, better future.
The Spring 2024 issue of Studies features several contributions from people who teach on an elective module at Trinity College, ‘Music-making, the Arts and Society’, jointly provided by the Royal Irish Academy of Music and the Department of Education in Trinity. John O’Hagan, a specialist in the economics of the arts, writes about the personal and societal benefits generated by direct public funding of the arts; Deborah Kelleher describes the RIAM’s commitment to promoting access and inclusion in music education and participation, particularly in relation to young people and adults with disabilities; Kerry Houston and Marita Kerin summarise findings from a study that investigates how current students view the musical, spiritual and social aspects of their experience as choristers; and Sarah Doxat-Pratt evaluates the impact of participatory arts projects in prisons and community justice settings.
The remaining essays in the issue carry diverse themes. Paul Shrimpton provides a detailed analysis of John Henry Newman’s voluminous personal papers from his time as Rector of the Catholic University in Ireland, particularly his relationship with Archbishop Paul Cullen; Suzanne Mulligan, writing on sexual violence against women, argues that we cannot understand the underpinnings of gender-based violence without first considering the values that shape the world we inhabit; Austen Ivereigh provides illuminating background to a series of talks he delivered for an eight-day spiritual exercise retreat of the British Jesuit Province; Gerry O’Hanlon SJ writes about Pope Francis’ synodal vision and strategy, concluding that for the pontiff, synodality is more a way of being Church rather than a mere system of governance; and Peader Kirby argues against the tendency to condemn and dismiss the far-right without attempting to understand them.
Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review spring 2024, The Arts and Society: A Question of Values is published by Messenger Publications. Priced at €10.
For more information or review copies please contact:
Carolanne Henry
Communications and Marketing Executive
Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review
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IRELAND
c.henry@messenger.ie
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