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March 2nd @ 7:30 pm - 9:30 pm

Catholic Culture Series on “Catholic Literary Heritage”

Mar 02
Catholic Culture Series on "Catholic Literary Heritage"

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The Lumen Christi Institute’s West Suburban Catholic Culture Series returns in 2021-22 with a monthly series on the theme of Catholic literary heritage. We will survey the history of literature written by Catholics from the early middle ages to the late twentieth century.

What is Catholic literature? What is our Catholic literary heritage? St. John Henry Newman has informed us that Catholic literature is more than “religious literature” or “the literature of religious men.” Rather, Catholic literature is literature of “all subjects whatever, treated as a Catholic would treat them, and as he only can treat them.” Not only doctrine, controversy, and history; but all of human life, as seen from the perspective given by Revelation and the life of the Church.

Participants will receive a booklet with extracts from the authors covered in the lectures. No advance reading is required, but our speakers will refer to the extracts in their lectures. The selections will offer an accessible foray into authors like Dante, Shakespeare, Anselm of Canterbury, and the author of The Pearl and Gawain and the Green Knight.

SPRING SEMESTER SCHEDULE

6:30 p.m. cocktails | 7:00 p.m. dinner, lecture, & Q&A | 8:30 p.m. end

MAR 2: English Catholic Revival of the 19th-20th Centuries
Prof. David Deavel (University of St. Thomas, MN)

APR 6: 20th Century American Catholic Literature
Prof. David Griffith (University of Notre Dame)

MAY 11: The Catholic Imagination in Modern American Poetry  *Livestreamed on Zoom*
Prof. James Matthew Wilson (University of St. Thomas, Houston)

FALL SEMESTER SCHEDULE

SEP 15: Medieval Catholic Literature 
Prof. Rachel Fulton Brown (University of Chicago)

OCT 13: Shakespeare 
Prof. Michael P. Murphy (Loyola University Chicago)

NOV 10: Dante
Prof. Jennifer Newsome Martin (University of Notre Dame)


Ruth Lake Country Club

6200 South Madison Street
Hinsdale, IL