DESCRIPTION: This course is a PhD seminar (for which 800-level students register Winter and Spring, WS817A & WS817B) open to a limited number of master's level students (WS517), with the professor's permission. This doctoral seminar will explore the philosophical, aesthetic, and theological significance of language. It will look at how words work as discursive and presentational symbols, how words function in creating meaning, and how words and the Word function in preaching and worship.

LEARNING OUTCOMES: The course seeks the following goals for each student: Cognitive: theoretical knowledge relating to the ministry of the Word as it intersects with homiletics and liturgics; Affective: deepened appreciation for the significance of language to communicate meaning and perform events; Skills: capacity to use language in creative and effective ways, especially as it relates to preaching and expression in worship.

RELEVANCE FOR MINISTRY: This seminar is designed for people who are called to the ministry of teaching theology, preaching, or worship and will provide them perspective on the relationship between words and God's Word.

COURSE FORMAT: The course will meet for a three-hour period once per week during the quarter for lecture, discussion, and student presentations.

REQUIRED READING: Students are required to read at least 3,000 pp. from the following & other books.

Austin, J. L. How to Do Things with Words. Harvard University Press, 1975.

Bartow, Charles. God's Human Speech: A Practical Theology of Proclamation. Eerdmans, 1997.

Danesi, Of Cigarettes, High Heels, and Other Interesting Things: An Introduction to Semiotics. Palgrave Macmillan, 1999.

Ellul, Jacques. The Humiliation of the Word. Eerdmans, 1985.

Johnson, Ben Campbell. GodSpeech: Putting Divine Disclosures into Human Words. Eerdmans, 2006.

Lischer, Richard. The End of Words. Eerdmans, 2005.

Ong, Walter. The Presence of the Word. University of Minnesota Press, 1981.

_________. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing of the Word. Routledge, 1982.

Ramshaw, Gail. Reviving Sacred Speech. OSL Publications, 2000.

Reinstra, Deborah, "Using Words in Worship" (unpublished manuscript).

Ricouer, Paul. The Rule of Metaphor: Multi-disciplinary Studies of the Creation of Meaning in Language. University of Toronto Press, 1981.

Schmit, C. J. Too Deep for Words: A Theology of Liturgical Expression. Westminster/John Knox, 2002.

Webb, Stephen. The Divine Voice: Christian Proclamation and the Theology of Sound. Brazos, 2004.

Wills, Garry. Lincoln at Gettysburg. Simon & Schuster, 1992.

A course reader of select articles and materials.

1. Read and be prepared to discuss assigned reading (3000 pages) (WS817A/517).

2. Students will make an oral presentation on a key figure in the field of language (semiotics, linguistics, philosophy of art) and prepare a précis of the figure's key work(s) (WS817A/517).

3. Students will prepare two creative writing assignments through which they explore the meaning and evocative power of language: one brief (poem, prayer, hymn text) and one more extensive (sermon, short story, speech, etc.) (WS817A/ S517).

4. A final research paper (35-40 pages) on a subject of the student's choice (WS817B/WS517). (The length and scope of this assignment will be adjusted for master's level students.)