Dance as Religious Studies

Doug Adams is Professor of Christianity and the Arts at Pacific School of Religion and serves on the Core Doctoral Faculty in Arts and Religions of the Graduate Theological Union, Berkeley, California. A postdoctoral Smithsonian Fellow in American Art History, he is author of seven books: most recently Transcendence with the Human Body in Art: Segal, De Staebler, Johns and Christo and Eyes to See Wholeness: Visual Arts Informing Biblical and Theological Studies in Worship and Education Through the Church Year.

Diane Apostolos-Cappadona is Adjunct Professor in the Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and Adjunct Professor in Religion, Art, and Gender Studies in the Liberal Studies Program of Georgetown University. She received both the Annual Award for Excellence in the Arts from The Newington-Cropsey Foundation and of the Excellence in Teaching Faculty Award from Georgetown University in 2000. During the 1996-97 academic year, she was a Senior Fellow at the Center for the Study of World Religions at Harvard University. Dr. Apostolos-Cappadona is the author of the Encyclopedia of Women in Religious Art (1996); Dictionary of Christian Art (1994); and The Spirit and the Vision: The Influence of Christian Romanticism on the Development of 19th century American Art (1995). She is the editor of Isamu Noguchi: Essays and Conversations with Bruce Altshuler (1994); of Image and Spirit in Sacred and Secular Art by Jane Dillenberger (1990); of Symbolism, the Sacred, and the Arts by Mircea Eliade (1985); of Art, Creativity, and the Sacred (1995 [1984]); and of The Sacred Play of Children (1983); Art Editor for World Spirituality: An Encyclopedic History of the Religious Quest, 25 volumes (1985-1994); and co-translator for A History of Religious Ideas, Volume III by Mircea Eliade (1985).

Dr. Apostolos-Cappadona is a contributor to The Dictionary of Art (1996), American National Biography (1999), Encyclopedia of New England Culture (2001), Encyclopedia of American Studies (2001), Encyclopedia of Comparative Iconography (1998), Encyclopedia of Women and World Religions (1999), Die Religion Geschichte und Gegnwart (1998-2004), Makers of Christian Theology in America (1997), The Oxford Dictionary of Islam (2001), and HarperCollins' Dictionary of Religion (1995), She is the author of numerous articles for scholarly journals. She and Doug Adams co-edited a collection of methodological essays, Art as Religious Studies (1987), and a collection of historical and methodological essays, Dance as Religious Studies (1990). With Lucinda Ebersole, she is the co-editor of Women, Creativity, and the Arts: Critical and Autobiographical Perspectives (1995). Dr. Apostolos-Cappadona is guest curator and author of the catalogue for In Search of Mary Magdalene: Images and Traditions (2002). She is preparing the introduction for the reprint edition of Sacred and Profane Beauty: The Holy in Art by Gerardus van der Leeuw; the entries for an International Encyclopedia of Religious Art; an edited volume, Sources and Documents in the History of Christian Art; and a textbook, The Art of the World's Religions.

Dr. Apostolos-Cappadona served as a Core Consultant to the PBS/BBC series, Dancing! (1993), and as co-curator for the celebratory exhibition, Noguchi at the Dance, for the Dance Collection, The New York Public Library for the Performing Arts (1994). She was a residential fellow at The Alden B. Dow Creativity Center (1982) and The Edward F. Albee Foundation (1983) in support of her study of the art and philosophy of Isamu Noguchi. Dr. Apostolos-Cappadona received fellowship support from the American Academy of Religion (1990), American Council of Learned Societies (1989), and National Endowment for the Humanities (1990), for her study of 19th-century American ministers as patrons and collectors of art. She is a Fellow of The Society for the Arts, Religion, and Contemporary Culture, and was a founding member of The Mimesis Institute, a Center for Religion, Art, and Healing.