spanisheyes
Forum Moderator, The Goal Is Soul
The Prestigious Hewson Lecture
@U2, September 08, 2002
Angela Pancella
"I always wondered who would show up to hear a lecture about my favorite rock and roll band," Nathan Tiemeyer told the people gathered to hear him speak at a Borders Bookstore in St. Louis. "Now I've finally got my answer."
The crowd (Tiemeyer later estimated there were fifty to seventy in attendance) was at the bookstore on a mid-July evening to hear the Covenant Theological Seminary student expound on the topic "When I Look at the World: Reality and Longing in the Music of U2." It was, he confessed early in the talk, the fulfillment of a long-standing dream. Years ago, Tiemeyer and some other U2 fan friends had considered creating their own lecture series on the topic they all felt was their area of expertise. "We even decided to give it that university feel by christening it 'The Prestigious Hewson Lectures,'" he told his audience that night, "which was an in-house nod to Bono's real name and a more than slightly ridiculous attempt to be clever."
Tiemeyer's presentation at Borders was not under the sponsorship of The Prestigious Hewson Lectures, but the Francis Schaeffer Institute (FSI) Lecture Series. FSI (which is affiliated with Covenant Theological Seminary, an evangelical college just west of St. Louis City) intends its summer lecture series to examine topics of interest to the culture at large -- say, Harry Potter books or Woody Allen movies -- from a Christian perspective. Originally, the talks were given at the Institute and so are still known as "Friday Nights at the Institute," even though they now take place at bookstores.
Since "there are often those in attendance that don't share the same worldview as the person speaking," as Tiemeyer put it in an e-mail, "FSI does ask that anyone who gives a Friday Night at the Institute lecture be respectful in how they communicate -- both in presenting their material and in answering questions and/or objections." Apart from this directive, Tiemeyer had a free hand for putting together his 30-minute talk -- although he did have to title it long before it was written. He explained that soon after he had brought up the idea of a U2 lecture, "FSI needed to alert Borders of what they had coming up with regard to lecture topics," so Tiemeyer and JoEllen Borgos, coordinator of the series, brainstormed titles to match the themes he considered addressing.
Armed with a title, Tiemeyer wrote a lecture that proposed "candidness and hope" as the twin pillars of U2's appeal. He explained what he meant by candidness by referring to a description by Bill Flanagan in U2 at the End of the World: "U2 are by nature truth tellers, and Bono, the man who is largely responsible for the lyrical content of the music, is by nature a big mouth. The result of this is a transparency...a vulnerability that gives us access to a singer and his band as they honestly grapple with the reality of the broken world in which they live. It is a task that can prove harsh and unsettling." He cited "Running to Stand Still" and its portrait of heroin abuse, "Stuck in a Moment" and the argument against suicide, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and the frustration of the Troubles as just a few examples of U2 confronting "the empty, tragic, and the otherwise painful experiences of life."
Balancing out the darkness, Tiemeyer believes, is the way U2 "also drag us up off the ground to keep going, buoyed by the belief that hope is still legitimate." He sees "40" as a counterweight to "Sunday Bloody Sunday," setting the earlier cry of "How long must we sing this song?" within a psalm of confidence and trust. He pointed out how the luckless character in "Beautiful Day" is directed to see "how the colours came out" after catastrophe. At the end of his talk he gave special emphasis to an Elevation concert memory: the disjointed, desperate monologue of "Bad" segueing through a hint of "40" to the exultation of "Where the Streets Have No Name."
After the lecture Tiemeyer invited questions from the audience. They came tentatively at first (quick enthusiasm is not a common trait of St. Louis audiences), but soon the question and answer period had gone on nearly as long as the lecture. Topics of discussion ranged far beyond the scope of Tiemeyer's thesis to other Big Questions concerning the band:
"How much of U2's message does the broad U2 fan base actually 'get'?"
"If U2 came on the scene today, would they be put on the 'Christian music' shelf?"
"Any comments on 'Wake Up Dead Man'?"
"What is your take on the Passengers album?"
When Tiemeyer admitted he hadn't actually listened to Original Soundtracks 1, another audience member stepped in with an impassioned critique of the U2/Brian Eno collaboration: "This is complete experimentalism at its apex." He also gave a mini-history of the inspiration behind "Miss Sarajevo."
"It's the ever-present danger when you do a topic like this -- that there are going to be people in the audience who know a lot more than you do," Tiemeyer commented when he had the floor again.
Those who may be returning to school might find inspiration in Tiemeyer's experience of working his U2 fandom into his academic life. In e-mail correspondence, he estimated he spent 25 hours researching his talk-reading books, studying lyrics, surfing the Web -- but "all that, of course, was a labor of love, and so the hours spent doing that went by a little faster than some of the other hours I've spent in research!"
He lamented the lack of time to delve into many more topics related to the band. For example, he would have liked to explore Bono's characterization of Zoo TV as "judo," fighting against your enemy utilizing his energy and strength.
He is deeply curious about audiences' responses to the seemingly more blatant hope/redemption currents in the Elevation tour. All this may be held off until the Prestigious Hewson Lecture Series receives its funding. Perhaps other students will take independent initiative in the meantime. There is exhaustive research waiting to be conducted.
? @U2/Pancella, 2002.
I really enjoyed this article, and thought it how cool to start a Lecture Series on the spiritual impact of U2 music and lyrics. Almost like what we have here with The Goal is Soul. I've highlighted parts of the article that may make for good discussion.
Chris
@U2, September 08, 2002
Angela Pancella
"I always wondered who would show up to hear a lecture about my favorite rock and roll band," Nathan Tiemeyer told the people gathered to hear him speak at a Borders Bookstore in St. Louis. "Now I've finally got my answer."
The crowd (Tiemeyer later estimated there were fifty to seventy in attendance) was at the bookstore on a mid-July evening to hear the Covenant Theological Seminary student expound on the topic "When I Look at the World: Reality and Longing in the Music of U2." It was, he confessed early in the talk, the fulfillment of a long-standing dream. Years ago, Tiemeyer and some other U2 fan friends had considered creating their own lecture series on the topic they all felt was their area of expertise. "We even decided to give it that university feel by christening it 'The Prestigious Hewson Lectures,'" he told his audience that night, "which was an in-house nod to Bono's real name and a more than slightly ridiculous attempt to be clever."
Tiemeyer's presentation at Borders was not under the sponsorship of The Prestigious Hewson Lectures, but the Francis Schaeffer Institute (FSI) Lecture Series. FSI (which is affiliated with Covenant Theological Seminary, an evangelical college just west of St. Louis City) intends its summer lecture series to examine topics of interest to the culture at large -- say, Harry Potter books or Woody Allen movies -- from a Christian perspective. Originally, the talks were given at the Institute and so are still known as "Friday Nights at the Institute," even though they now take place at bookstores.
Since "there are often those in attendance that don't share the same worldview as the person speaking," as Tiemeyer put it in an e-mail, "FSI does ask that anyone who gives a Friday Night at the Institute lecture be respectful in how they communicate -- both in presenting their material and in answering questions and/or objections." Apart from this directive, Tiemeyer had a free hand for putting together his 30-minute talk -- although he did have to title it long before it was written. He explained that soon after he had brought up the idea of a U2 lecture, "FSI needed to alert Borders of what they had coming up with regard to lecture topics," so Tiemeyer and JoEllen Borgos, coordinator of the series, brainstormed titles to match the themes he considered addressing.
Armed with a title, Tiemeyer wrote a lecture that proposed "candidness and hope" as the twin pillars of U2's appeal. He explained what he meant by candidness by referring to a description by Bill Flanagan in U2 at the End of the World: "U2 are by nature truth tellers, and Bono, the man who is largely responsible for the lyrical content of the music, is by nature a big mouth. The result of this is a transparency...a vulnerability that gives us access to a singer and his band as they honestly grapple with the reality of the broken world in which they live. It is a task that can prove harsh and unsettling." He cited "Running to Stand Still" and its portrait of heroin abuse, "Stuck in a Moment" and the argument against suicide, "Sunday Bloody Sunday" and the frustration of the Troubles as just a few examples of U2 confronting "the empty, tragic, and the otherwise painful experiences of life."
Balancing out the darkness, Tiemeyer believes, is the way U2 "also drag us up off the ground to keep going, buoyed by the belief that hope is still legitimate." He sees "40" as a counterweight to "Sunday Bloody Sunday," setting the earlier cry of "How long must we sing this song?" within a psalm of confidence and trust. He pointed out how the luckless character in "Beautiful Day" is directed to see "how the colours came out" after catastrophe. At the end of his talk he gave special emphasis to an Elevation concert memory: the disjointed, desperate monologue of "Bad" segueing through a hint of "40" to the exultation of "Where the Streets Have No Name."
After the lecture Tiemeyer invited questions from the audience. They came tentatively at first (quick enthusiasm is not a common trait of St. Louis audiences), but soon the question and answer period had gone on nearly as long as the lecture. Topics of discussion ranged far beyond the scope of Tiemeyer's thesis to other Big Questions concerning the band:
"How much of U2's message does the broad U2 fan base actually 'get'?"
"If U2 came on the scene today, would they be put on the 'Christian music' shelf?"
"Any comments on 'Wake Up Dead Man'?"
"What is your take on the Passengers album?"
When Tiemeyer admitted he hadn't actually listened to Original Soundtracks 1, another audience member stepped in with an impassioned critique of the U2/Brian Eno collaboration: "This is complete experimentalism at its apex." He also gave a mini-history of the inspiration behind "Miss Sarajevo."
"It's the ever-present danger when you do a topic like this -- that there are going to be people in the audience who know a lot more than you do," Tiemeyer commented when he had the floor again.
Those who may be returning to school might find inspiration in Tiemeyer's experience of working his U2 fandom into his academic life. In e-mail correspondence, he estimated he spent 25 hours researching his talk-reading books, studying lyrics, surfing the Web -- but "all that, of course, was a labor of love, and so the hours spent doing that went by a little faster than some of the other hours I've spent in research!"
He lamented the lack of time to delve into many more topics related to the band. For example, he would have liked to explore Bono's characterization of Zoo TV as "judo," fighting against your enemy utilizing his energy and strength.
He is deeply curious about audiences' responses to the seemingly more blatant hope/redemption currents in the Elevation tour. All this may be held off until the Prestigious Hewson Lecture Series receives its funding. Perhaps other students will take independent initiative in the meantime. There is exhaustive research waiting to be conducted.
? @U2/Pancella, 2002.
I really enjoyed this article, and thought it how cool to start a Lecture Series on the spiritual impact of U2 music and lyrics. Almost like what we have here with The Goal is Soul. I've highlighted parts of the article that may make for good discussion.
Chris
