See You at Fordham’s Future of the Catholic Literary Imagination Conference?

Last updated on: February 26, 2017 at 9:52 pm by Artur Rosman

See You at Fordham’s Future of the Catholic Literary Imagination Conference? 2017-02-26T21:52:42-07:00 Artur Rosman

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You’d think that a religious imagination that can produce public intellectuals such as Dana Gioia, Ron Hansen, Alice McDermott, Mary Gordon, Micheal O’Siadhail, Philip Metres, Angela Alaimo O’Donnell in just one generation has a pretty bright future.

This is the topic of The Future of the Catholic Literary Imagination conference that I’ll be attending this April 27th through the 29th thanks to a generous grant.

I’m really excited to be able to do this, since some of you remember that the Catholic Imagination in particular, and Catholic Studies in general, are topics of great interest to me.

The accommodations for the conference are very affordable at only $100. That’s a hundred bucks for a dinner, two lunches, 2 receptions, and 2.5 days of programming!

This blog gets a lot of its traffic through New York so I’m looking forward to meeting some of my readers in person. Let me know if that’s something you’d like to do. I think a Twitter PM might be the easiest way to facilitate this if you don’t already know how to get a hold of me. You can find my account right here.

If your appetite needs more whetting, then here’s a full description from the conference website:

There was a time when Catholic writers dominated the literary scene in America. Figures such as Dorothy Day, Flannery O’Connor, and Walker Percy were well-known by American readers. Even though they belonged to a religious minority (albeit a sizeable one) — a minority that had been persecuted for much of America’s history — somehow these Catholic writers had a vision to offer readers that their contemporaries did not. They were embraced by American readers, even as they bore witness to a particularly Catholic view of the world as embodied in their books.

In recent years, some important questions have been raised in Catholic circles: why do Catholic writers seem no longer to hold a dominant position in American literary culture? Are there any prominent Catholic writers who write from a standpoint of faith, and, if so, who are they? Is it possible any more—or desirable—to self-identify as a Catholic writer in a post-religious age?

Since writers are the repository of memory and the legacy-makers of any given culture, can the Catholic Church afford to lose its writers to secularism as writers conform to the demands of contemporary literary culture?

This conference seeks to address these questions by showcasing the preeminent Catholic writers of our time and by creating a forum for discussion among practitioners, critics, editors, academics, reviewers, publishers, and readers. The conference will offer a forum to engage in dialogue on issues surrounding the Catholic Literary Imagination, both in theory and practice, through plenary sessions, panels, and concurrent programs. In addition, the conference aims to accomplish the following goals:

To enhance understanding and appreciation of the richness and variety of contributions being made by Catholic writers to contemporary literature, drama, and television.

To explore the critical and theoretical foundations of the Catholic Imagination.

To foster a community of writers and readers who share knowledge of and respect for Catholic tradition.

To promote collaboration among writers, critics, academics, educators, editors, publishers and readers along with the recognition that each of us is playing a role in a common project.

To make visible to the Church the important role its writers play in integrating the Catholic vision into the wider world.

To empower members of the Catholic literary community and find ways to create conditions under which the Catholic Imagination might continue to flourish.

To showcase the work of Catholic writers across the spectrum, with a particular emphasis on New York Catholic writers and work fostered by the Ignatian Imagination.

In the spring of 2017 the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies will host an international conference devoted to the theme, “The Future of the Catholic Literary Imagination.” This conference is a follow-up to the first Catholic Imagination conference hosted by the Center for Advanced Catholic Studies at the University of Southern California in spring of 2015.

A number of premier Catholic writers across the genres will gather at our Lincoln Center campus to give lectures, readings, and panel presentations over the course of three days. The purpose of the conference is to engage in discussion about the role that Catholic writers play both in American culture and in the life of the Church and to consider the role they will continue to play in the future.

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