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Reading the Catholic Imagination

Reading the Catholic Imagination is an online summer reading and discussion series for readers and writers to explore together the Catholic literary imagination in its myriad forms: in new work by self-professed Catholic writers; in the crossings and convergences of old and new work, religious and secular; and in our own habits of reading. This series is hosted by the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage of Loyola University Chicago and this summer is led by four excellent emerging scholars of the Catholic literary tradition. 

Registration opens on Thursday, May 30th, 2024 and will close on Sunday, June 30th. Specific dates and times for each session are listed below. All are welcome to register! 

REGISTER HERE!

 

The 2024 topics will include:

 

 

Marilynne Robinson and Catholicism: A Productive Tension? with William Gonch, PhD

Marilynne Robinson, America's most prominent Calvinist writer, has an avid following among Catholic readers. In this seminar we will ask, what does Robinson have to offer the Catholic imaginative tradition? Reading Robinson's Gilead alongside the work of American Catholic writers such as Flannery O'Connor and Katy Carl, we will explore her distinctive contribution to a shared Christian aesthetic and ask what is gained and lost by attending to the distinctive imaginaries of Christian traditions.

Days and Times: Wednesdays, 6:30-8:00pm Central, July 10 - August 14

 

 

Children of Violence: Grace and the Grotesque in Flannery O’Connor, Kirstin Valdez Quade, and John and Martin McDonagh with Jessica Schnepp, PhD

 Just as Flannery O’Connor’s fictional world is “Christ-haunted,” the worlds of New Mexican writer Kirstin Valdez Quade and Irish filmmakers John and Martin McDonagh are “O’Connor-haunted” to the core. This seminar will trace the contemporary contours of O’Connor’s legacy in Night at the Fiestas by Valdez Quade, Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri and The Banshees of Inisherin by Martin McDonagh, and Calvary by John McDonagh.

Days and Times: Mondays, 6:30-8:00pm Central, July 8 - August 12

 

 

Reading Denise Levertov's Conversion with Lyle Enright, PhD

This seminar will take a chronological journey through select poems of Denise Levertov, tracing her aesthetic interest in Catholicism towards its religious culmination near the end of her life. Levertov's poetry provides an opportunity to explore the threshold between the sacred and the secular, and the process by which human desires find their transcendent expressions.

Days and Times: Tuesdays, 7:30-9:00pm Central, July 9 - August 13

 

 

The Bear and the Inner Life with Susan L.  Miller, PhD

This summer we’ll examine the compelling, disastrous world of “The Bear,” everyone’s favorite show about cooking and service. With selected readings by Thomas a Kempis, Brother Lawrence, M.F.K Fisher, and others, we’ll think about hospitality, family, masculinity, responsibility, labor, grief, love, and all kinds of messy, flawed human behavior in contemporary America. Please note that this seminar requires viewing all three seasons of The Bear before the seminar start date.

Days and Times: Thursdays, 6:30-8:00pm Central, July 11 - August 15

 

 

Topics from Reading the Catholic Imagination - Summer 2023

  • Reading Like a (Catholic) Writer with William Gonch: How can writers explore God’s grace in our time? What challenges face us when we tell new stories of sin, grace, faith, and redemption? In this seminar aimed at aspiring writers but open to all, we will read and discuss Christopher Beha's novel The Index of Self-Destructive Acts alongside short fiction by Katy Carl, Kirsten Valdez Quade and other members of a new generation of writers grappling with art and faith.
    • Mondays 6:00-7:30PM Central Time, July 10 - August 14, 2023 (6 weeks)
  • Crossing Boundaries in the Catholic Imagination with Jessica Schnepp: What might a mid-twentieth century mystic and self-proclaimed neurotic have to say to a twenty-first century self-professed “bad feminist” wounded by loss, grief, guilt, and ineffable longing?  In this exploratory seminar, we’ll cross boundaries of time, genre, and perspectives on religious faith, putting Guilt by Caryll Houselander in dialogue with Fleabag (Seasons 1 & 2) by Phoebe Waller-Bridge to feel out the contours of the Catholic imagination from within and without. 
    • Thursdays 6:00-7:30PM Central Time, July 6 - August 10, 2023 (6 weeks)
  •  Reading With a Catholic Imagination with Lyle Enright: It’s tempting to locate this thing we call the “Catholic imagination” outside of us, as though it’s something we encounter. But what of this organ inside us, that does the reading? Through an examination of the fantasy novel, Skullsworn, by Brian Staveley, and the writings of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Rainer Maria Rilke, we will explore what makes a reading "Christian," as well as the motives behind von Balthasar’s “theological aesthetics” which have shaped the Catholic imagination over the last half century.
    • Wednesdays 6:00-7:30PM Central Time, July 5 - August 9, 2023 (6 weeks)