Yale Institute of Sacred Music
Yale Institute of Sacred Music (ISM) is an interdisciplinary graduate center at Yale University that engages broadly with sacred music, worship, and the arts in diverse religious traditions and in civic life. The ISM podcast series focuses on different disciplines and perspectives that touch upon these subjects.
‘What We Are Called to Remember’: Dr. Katie Anania in Conversation with the ISM on Feminist Agriculture, Queer Art-Making, and Sacred Collaboration
Visiting ISM Fellow Katie Anania discusses her work as an art historian with ISM student Remi Recchia. Dr. Anania covers her latest monograph in progress, Devour Everything: Feminist Art After Agriculture, explores expressions of feminism in art-making spaces, and highlights her upcoming April 10 ISM conference, “Plant Lives: Sacred Interdependencies in the Arts of the Americas.”
Payam Yousefi and the Multifaceted Dimensions of the Music of Iran
In this episode, Dr. Payam Yousefi discusses with Sindy Yang (MAR ’26) his background as a musical performer and scholar. In particular, he shares how his personal experiences as a musician were deeply embedded in social and political movements in Iran, which served as the impetus for his graduate research. Diving into classical Persian and Sufi poetry, Yousefi shows how music in Iran bears moral, political, and even theological dimensions critical to its understanding. Yousefi also discusses the duality of being a performer-scholar, showing how musical practice and scholarly study are symbiotic with each other.
Between Art and Science: An Exploration into the Musical Acoustics of Sacred Spaces
In this episode, Elliot Canfield-Dafilou talks about his interest in the architectural acoustics of sacred spaces. He begins by recounting his background in musical training and technology, eventually combining the two to find his interdisciplinary home in musical acoustics. With a particular emphasis on sacred spaces, Canfield-Dafilou explores in his research the unique liturgical contexts within which musical acoustics unravels itself.
Exploring Ethnomusicology, Hindustani Music, and the Sarangi
In this episode, Dr. Suhail Yusuf joins Sindy Yang (MAR ’26) for a conversation about his identity and work as an ethnomusicologist and performing musician. They also dive into discussion about his main instrument, the sarangi, with its rich history and profound cultural connotations.
Lessons from the Ovary: An Interview with Dr. Hattie Chung
What can the intricate world of the ovary teach us about overall health? In this episode, we explore the implications of interdisciplinary research and predictive models on drug development with Dr. Hattie Chung, a recently-joined researcher and faculty member at Yale. Dr. Chung studies diverse biological topics through a systems biology lens through which she …
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Time in Byzantium
In this episode of the ISM Fellows Podcast, Dr. Peter Boudreau sheds light on time in Byzantium through his work on Byzantine calendar icons. Dr. Boudreau also discusses the complexity of Byzantine time, the relationship between images and text, and the future of studying Byzantium.
On Gospel Music and New Approaches to Musicology
In this episode, Dr. Cory Hunter speaks with Sindy Yang (MAR ‘25) about his research on gospel music. They also discuss how his background training in music performance, religion, and theology brings innovation to his methodologies as a scholar. What results is a freshness brought to the discipline of musicology at large, and new ways in which these methodologies and approaches impact the broader scope of interdisciplinary studies of music, religion, and theology.
Giving Voice to Douceline of Digne
In this episode of the ISM Fellows Podcast, Dr. Samantha Slaubaugh offers insights into her work on Douceline of Digne as a rare paradigm of liturgical practice among the Beguines of Marseilles. Dr. Slaubaugh also discusses the way in which Douceline of Digne, through her unique practice of liturgy, is situated in her medieval community that reveals the unexpected fragility of her sociopolitical circumstances.
Into the Valley: Indigenous Artistic Rituals in Southwest China
As an ethnographer of art, Dr. Katie Dimmery’s work focuses on the ways in which communities and identities are shaped by artistic ritual in the southwest region of China. Her research attends to the practices of indigenous ritualists and how these practices are situated in regional ethnic and social politics. This conversation traces the history of one particular valley in southwest China and how aesthetics and artistic traditions are being enacted today by the people who live there.
The Incredible World of Syriac Manuscripts
Dr. Ephrem Aboud Ishac discusses his work with ancient Syriac manuscripts, the ways the church and scholarly communities can benefit each other, and the challenges facing the preservation of these ancient texts.
Across the Airwaves: Exploring Kurdish Identity Through Radio Broadcasting
Jon Bullock, a postdoctoral fellow at Yale’s Institute of Sacred Music, joins Ariana Hones (M.Div ’25) for a conversation on how radio is used as a tool for shaping Kurdish identity. Using the lens of ethnomusicology and the sacred, Jon discusses the impacts of colonialism and technologies of sound, such recording and broadcasting on Kurdish music.
