‘Da Vinci Code’ lecture series begins Sept. 28

Just who was Mary Magdalene? It’s an age-old debate resurrected by the best-seller “The Da Vinci Code” and the focus of the 2006-07 Medieval Studies Undergraduate Program and Workshop, titled “The Da Vinci Code Series.”

Peter Loewen, assistant professor of musicology at the Shepherd School of Music, will open the lecture series with an examination of singing-preacher portrayals of the woman long depicted in the Christian tradition as a reformed prostitute. In “Singing in a Fool’s Paradise: Mary Magdalene as Joculatrix Domini in Dramas from England, the German Lands and Bohemia,” Loewen will compare the role of Mary Magdalene in an Ordo resurrectionis found in a Shrewsbury fragment to her similar portrayals as singing preacher in several German-Latin Easter plays. Images and recordings of performances will accompany the talk to be presented at 4:30 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 28, in 117 Humanities.

Loewen, who came to Rice just this year, studies medieval drama — mostly the roles of Mary Magdalene and the Virgin Mary in German-Latin passion and Easter plays — but more recently in English-Latin and Czech-Latin Easter plays. He also studies secular and religious song, including Latin Goliardic, Minnesang and Middle Dutch Liederen, and the music and related theology of the medieval Franciscans, which is the subject of his forthcoming book to be published in 2007.

Additional lectures examining the identity of Mary Magdalene will follow in the fall and spring. For more information on the series, visit <http://medieval.rice.edu/> or contact Jane Chance, director of the Medieval Studies Program and Workshop, at 713-348-2625 or <jchance@rice.edu>.

The Da Vinci Code Series is sponsored by the Humanities Research Center; a Sarofim Teaching Grant; the Neil O’Brien Fund; Gary Wihl, dean of the School of Humanities; and Chuck Henry, vice provost and university librarian.