Global Catholic Literature
The term catholic always has defined the Church by its universal scope. And yet in 1900, 75% of Catholics lived in Europe and North America. Today, that ratio has flipped as we have entered into what theologian Karl Rahner called the era of the Global Church.
The Global Catholic Literature Project seeks to express both this new reality and age-old mission through seminars that explore probing Catholic writers, past and present, from all continents. In so doing, we seek to maintain, broaden, and deepen the global canon of Catholic literature, and make its spiritual treasury available for collective and personal appreciation.
Our project, in collaboration with Dappled Things Journal, primarily consists of a thrice annual series of digital seminars for all thoughtful readers. No prior exposure to Catholic literary voices is required. Convening in the fall, spring, and summer, each seminar series traverses through one particular novel in four sessions. Each session is led by a different specialist – scholars, translators, and novelists – with whom we examine the context, themes, characters, and plots of each novel. Each series culminates in a final discussion where participants formulate their own reflections on the novel, what it meant for them, and how they think it might either fit within or expand the corpus of Catholic literature.
While doing so we leave open the question of what makes literature ‘Catholic’ so that our scholars, writers, and students can sharpen and broaden their own understanding. In a sense, Catholic literature as a concept is a constellation of features rather than a distinct category. Some of these features include a focus on sacramental imagination, sin and sanctity, the possibility of redemption, the power of the sacraments, cultural and dogmatic features of the Church, and the meaning of conversion. A global Catholic literature also includes themes such as colonialism, race and justice, the human family, and the tension of writing and living between cultures. In particular, this means thinking through questions of inculturation, and how that might shape different societies and the Church.
Our seminars circulate around questions such as: What makes a piece of literature Catholic? How is this Catholicity expressed? Is the description ‘Catholic’ a primarily cultural or theological description? What adjustments do present global realities make to the shape and meaning of Catholic literature? And, perhaps most centrally, how can a writer’s “Catholic sense” continue to resound in the modern soul and form our moral imagination today?
Coming Up Next
The Roots of Knowing: A Dive into Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse's Novellas
The Roots of Knowing: A Dive into Nobel Laureate Jon Fosse's Novellas
The Catholic intellectual tradition affirms the importance of clearly naming the things of God, while also acknowledging that the totality of the truth about God lives beyond all human capacity for language. How can art, which necessarily mediates truth through the senses, speak about what lies so far beyond the edges of human sensory experience? How might we find ourselves dwelling in the peace that passes all understanding—and how will we know when we are only lost in the dark forest? Through two novellas—Aliss at the Fire and A Shining—both by recent Nobel laureate and Norwegian Catholic convert Jon Fosse, our Global Catholic Literature seminar this spring will explore the roots of human knowing, naming, and dwelling between two worlds. It will take us into spaces of light and dark, presence and absence, the kataphatic and the apophatic. It will deepen an appreciation for both the numinous otherness of the unknown and for the breadth, height, and depth of the knowable truth.
We will meet four Monday evenings in March 7:00-8:30pm ET on Zoom.
March 4
March 11
March 18
March 25
Sessions will be facilitated by Katy Carl, Editor-in-chief of Dappled Things, Randy Boyagoda, author of Dante's Indiana, and Jonathan Geltner, novelist and and essayist.
