A Catholic Vision of Culture in the 21st Century | West Suburban Catholic Culture Series
Emily AustinUniversity of Chicago
The West Suburban Catholic Culture Series Fall 2024
A Catholic Vision of Culture in the 21st Century
REGISTRATION
(Business casual attire encouraged. For questions, please email Marial Corona at mcorona@lumenchristi.org).
Schedule: 6:30 p.m. Drinks | 7:00 p.m. Dinner, Lecture, & Q&A | 8:30 p.m. End
October 16th:
Literary Traditions and the Pursuit of Truth: A Culture of Humility
Emily Austin (University of Chicago)
The challenges of our times can make Christians feel embattled and besieged. But the Catholic intellectual tradition, at its best, equips us to look with openness for the Truth, incarnate in the world around us. In this lecture, Prof. Emily Austin will share her perspective as a classicist, reading within a literary tradition. To read within a tradition requires patience and attentiveness, allowing each text to teach you how to read anew. She will argue that a Catholic literary culture requires—and fosters—humility. The pursuit of Truth is most productively sought, in a literary context, within a community of friends
SERIES DESCRIPTION
Western culture owes a great deal to Christianity, but Christianity does not require any culture, as a culture, to be built with Christian materials. This does not reflect a weakness or defect in Christianity. It is a consequence of its genius. Christianity can and should inform every human undertaking. In this series, we’ll explore various arenas where human existence is played out and discover how Christianity can transform them. Our point of departure is Remi Brague's reflection "From What is Left Over," which takes as its inspiration Pope Benedict's "The Roots of European Culture."
CALENDAR
September 25: What is Catholic Culture?
Jennifer Newsome Martin (University of Notre Dame)
October 16: Literary Traditions and the Pursuit of Truth: A Culture of Humility
Emily Austin (University of Chicago)
November 20: The Story of Catholic Education: Renewing Our Schools, Renewing Our Culture
Michael Naughton (University of St. Thomas)
February 27: Journalism and Catholic Culture
JD Flynn (The Pillar)
March 20: On Work
Paul Blaschko (University of Notre Dame)
April 24: A Catholic Vision of Sports
Clark Power (University of Notre Dame)
Emily Austin is an assistant professor of Classics at the University of Chicago. She writes on Homer, especially emotions, as well as literary depictions of solitude in ancient Greece. Her first book, Grief and the Hero: the Futility of Longing in the Iliad, explores the nexus of grief, longing and anger in the Iliad. This work begins with a verbal find—Achilles’ grief for Patroklos is uniquely described with the Greek word “longing” (ποθή)—and through this discovery, the book traces the relationship between grief and action, giving a narrative account for why Achilles’ anger is insatiable. Her current research projects include a second book, Solitude and its Powers in Ancient Greece (in progress), which identifies surprising moments when ancient Greek poetry conceives of solitude as a good thing. In addition, Austin has written articles on Homeric similes and their relation to the narrative; meaningful variation in Homeric formulae; and the power of inactivity in the Homeric Hymn to Demeter and the Iliad.
