Adé Bethune Lecture Series: Rebecca M. Berru-Davis and Katharine E. Harmon, October 9, 6:30 PM

Thursday, October 9

6:30 PM

Visual Arts Building lecture hall

This is the second in a series of lectures commemorating the centennial of liturgical artist, writer, and social activist Adé Bethune (1914-2002). Rebecca M. Berru-Davis and Katharine E. Harmon will each discuss different aspects of Bethune’s life and artistic legacy.

"Liturgical Design, Art, and Community: Adé Bethune’s Evolving Mission to Transform Church Space" 

Rebecca Berru-Davis, Ph.D.

Rebecca M. Berru–Davis, Ph.D., will examine the ways in which Bethune’s liturgical design projects reflected her vision of church, enhanced the experience of worship for the faithful, and coalesced to shape the larger Liturgical Movement.

Berru-Davis is currently the Louisville Institute Vocation of the Theological Educator Postdoctoral Fellow at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN. She earned her doctorate in the area of Art and Religion at the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California. Her ongoing research is focused primarily on women’s art created in places such as home and church and as far-reaching as the shantytowns of Lima, Peru, evidenced by the exhibit she curated called Picturing Paradise. 

"Work and Worship: Adé Bethune and the American Liturgical Movement"

Katharine E. Harmon, Ph.D., will discuss Adé Bethune’s contribution to and leadership in liturgical renewal in the United States in the years prior to the Second Vatican Council. Harmon will highlight how Bethune’s advocacy for the arts intersected with the liturgical movement’s goal of uniting the intelligent, active participation of the lay faithful with worship in the Roman Catholic tradition.

Katharine E. Harmon, Ph.D.

Harmon is a currently a lecturer in Theology at Marian University in Indianapolis, IN. She earned her doctorate in theology from the University of Notre Dame and is a member of the North American Academy of Liturgy. She is the author of There Were Also Many Women There: Lay Women in the Liturgical Movement in the United States, 1926-59.

The lectures are presented in conjunction with the exhibition "Adé Bethune: The Power of One Person" at the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery through December 19, 2014. The exhibition draws from items in the University's Adé Bethune Collection and each speaker has used the Collection for their research.

Co–sponsors of the lecture series are: the Myser Initiative on Catholic Identity; Sisters of St. Joseph of Carondelet, St. Paul Province; Alumnae Council Lifelong Learning Committee and Friends of the Catherine G. Murphy Gallery.

For more information about the exhibition and lecture series see http://www.stkate.edu/gallery/14-15/ade_bethune.php