As in summers past, Collegium will once again be hosting our summer seminars, taking on longer works afforded by the break in the academic year.

For the month of June, our Faith in Fiction seminar will be building off our special event on Wednesday June 3rd to explore the Imaginary of Flannery O'Connor. We will dive into her second and final novel, The Violent Bear it Away, and encounter her strange, sometimes humorous, shocking and glory-filled literature, replete with a motley crew of characters and plot twists.

Due to the Covid-19 restrictions, we must conduct this program online. This challenge, however, is also a great opportunity: we are thrilled to welcome four special guest facilitators from around the country to lead our sessions from their homes! Each session will be facilitated by one of the four distinguished panelists from our special event this Wednesday evening, namely:

Amy Alznauer, Artist-in-Residence at St. Gregory the Great in Chicago and Author of soon to be released picture book, The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Connor: A Life.

Jennifer Frey, Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of South Carolina and co-editor of Self-Transcendence and Virtue: Perspectives from Philosophy, Psychology, and Theology.

Jessica Hooten Wilson, Associate Professor of Literature at John Brown University and the author of Giving the Devil His Due: Flannery O‘Connor and The Brothers Karamazov.

Christine Flanagan, Professor of English at University of the Sciences and the editor of The Letters of Flannery O'Connor and Caroline Gordon​.

Click here for more details on Collegium's special online event, "Flannery O'Connor: Solitude, Imagination and the Oddities of Life", which will take place Wednesday, June 3rd, at 7pm.

The central entreé of our literary feast will be The Violent Bear it Away, O'Connor's second and final novel. But we will warm up with our first session on June 10th which will consider a related O'Connor non-fiction essay and letter.

Schedule:

June 10: Prof. Christine Flanagan on Flannery O'Connor's Letters and Essays
June 17: Prof. Jessica Hooten Wilson, Session 1 of The Violent Bear it Away
June 24: Amy Alznauer, Session 2 of The Violent Bear it Away
July 1: Prof. Jennifer Frey, Session 3 of The Violent Bear it Away


In order to sustain the conditions for an intimate seminar environment with a high degree of participant involvement, we must cap the size of the group. *All are very welcome to register below*, but -- in addition to order of registration -- preference will be given on the following basis:

(a) University of Pennsylvania and Philadelphia-area undergraduate and graduate students;

(b) attendees of our preparatory June 3rd special event (see above); and

(c) those who commit to attending all four sessions. Besides engagement with our June 3rd event, no prior experience with the literature of O'Connor will be expected or requested.

Admitted participants will be notified on Monday, June 8th, and Collegium will provide them with digital copies of all our readings, including the novel, The Violent Bear it Away.

Details:

Date: Wednesdays, June 10, 17, 24 and July 1

Time: 5:00-6:00pm

Place: Via Zoom