This past weekend I (Jessica Hooten Wilson) visited Dallas to give a talk on the University of Dallas campus, “Should Saints Read Novels?” as well as make further preparations for our upcoming Catholic Imagination Conference.
I argued against Antonin Sertillanges, who calls novels “poison [that] upset the mind without refreshing it; they disturb and confuse one’s thoughts.” Instead, I side with Pope John Paul II who urged others to “read carefully” novels, especially those “of modernity, such as ‘Camus’s The Plague or Graham Greene’s The Power and the Glory.” Or, with the novelist St. John Henry Newman. Or, with St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross, who handed out copies of Undset’s novels to novices struggling with sanctity.
The Catholic Imagination Conference will pick up where this conversation left off, celebrating living novelists, such as Uwem Akpan, Ron Hansen, Phil Klay, Chris Beha, Glen Arbery, and Katy Carl, as well as those whose work we remember well and continue reading, such as Brian Doyle, Toni Morrison, Walker Percy, and others.
If you’re interested in the connections between the life of faith, enduring philosophical questions, and great literature, then I am sure you regularly listen to the Sacred and Profane Love podcast hosted by Dr. Jennifer Frey and sponsored by the Institute of Humane Ecology. At the CIC on October 1, there will be a recording of a live episode with Frey and her guest acclaimed poet Dana Gioia, discussing Baudelaire. In the most recent episode of the podcast, Frey and former President of the University of Dallas Thomas Hibbs talked about Dostoevsky’s Crime & Punishment. Guests from the past have also included Carl, Klay, and other significant voices in the Catholic imagination.
In addition to hearing novelists read from their work in progress, there will be two fiction workshops, one on Friday afternoon hosted by Uwem Akpan, whose first novel Say You’re One of Them was selected for Oprah’s Book Club.
“I’d say my religious life has shaped my worldview; my writing, I’d say too, is an extension of the pulpit…. It reaches folks who don’t care for organized religion in a different way.” —Akpan
On Saturday morning, another fiction workshop will be hosted by Joshua Hren, graduate professor in the University of St. Thomas MFA and founding editor of Wiseblood Books. Hren’s first novel Infinite Regress is published by Angelico Press, which will also be attending the conference.
When I visited Dallas this past weekend, Fr. Stephen Gregg, who teaches at the preparatory school at the Cistercian Abbey invited me and my assistant Mandi Gerth over to see Our Lady of Dallas. Fr. Gregg attended the Loyola University of Chicago CIC in 2019, and he was eager to partner with our event. Newly added to our schedule is a Saturday lunch option where attendees can tour their beautiful church and hear about the Catholic imagination and sacred architecture.
We hope you have reserved your place at the Catholic Imagination Conference, Sept 30-Oct 1, 2022. Attendance is limited because of the restricted spaces available on campus. If you care about the Catholic imagination, please consider donating to the event. Checks may be written to the University of Dallas with “Catholic Imagination Conference” in the subject line and mailed to the Cowan Archives.
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