In a December 2013 article in First Things, the poet Dana Gioia wrote,
“...although Roman Catholicism constitutes the largest religious and cultural group in the United States, Catholicism currently enjoys almost no positive presence in the American fine arts—not in literature, music, sculpture, or painting. This situation not only represents a demographic paradox. It also marks a major historical change—an impoverishment, indeed even a disfigurement—for Catholicism, which has for two millennia played a hugely formative and inspirational role in the arts.”
Gioia’s article struck a chord with readers, although not always one in universal agreement. Gregory Wolfe, also writing in First Things, offered this response:
“...here’s my counter-thesis: The loss of a Catholic presence in mainstream literary culture is not because we are suffering from a dearth of gifted Catholic writers but because ideological blinders have prevented religious and secular people alike from perceiving and engaging the work that is out there.
In other words, we suffer from a type of spiritual and cultural anorexia: What would feed and nourish us is before us, but we will not eat.”
This exchange sums up the genesis of our event this week, On the Making of Books: Crafting Catholic Literature for the 21st Century.
Is Catholic literature really in decline, or are we so focused on the mid-20th century golden age of Catholic fiction that we can’t see the forest for the trees?
Our panel of authors and editors will be grappling with that question, providing (spoiler alert!) some surprising news about the state of Catholic writing today.
Register for the event and you’ll learn more about:
What Catholic literature is being written today
How large the talent pool is
Where these authors finding a home for their work
What themes are being explored
There’s no doubt that Catholic literature was mainstream literature from the 1930s through the 1960s. Many much loved authors, from JRR Tolkien to Flannery O’Connor, produced work that resonated on both a popular and literary level. However, their work reflected the age and the places they lived in. The questions they tackled were as big as a world war and as deep as the segregated South. Should we really expect, or even want, the same kind of literature from today’s Catholic authors?
Make sure you join us April 29th at 7:00 pm to find out. Register now and we’ll see you online this Thursday.
Note: This event is proudly co-presented by the Collegium Institute, and co-sponsored by the Corpus Christi Foundation, Ignatius Press, Dappled Things, Wiseblood Books, Chrism Press, WhiteFire Publishing, Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage, Portsmouth Institute for Faith and Culture, St. Lawrence Catholic Campus Center at Kansas University, Harvard Catholic Forum, MFA at University of St. Thomas at Houston.