REGISTER BELOW
Meets Weekly on Thursdays: Jan. 22, 29, Feb. 5, 12, 19
5:00 – 6:30 p.m. | Dinner Provided
This event is designated for University of Chicago graduate students. Other students interested in attending should contact William Hurley at whurley@lumenchristi.org. Students will receive a copy of the texts.
“My anger is the effervescence of my pity,” declared writer, polemicist, and literary brigand Léon Bloy. Bloy played a leading role in the French Catholic Revival (c. 1885-1915), though he also influenced thinkers from Cèline to Grahame Greene to the controversial Michel Houellebecq. A remarkable wordsmith, Bloy cut his teeth on Gothic Romanticism, Counter-Enlightenment philosophy, and the Vulgate. Styling himself “the Ungrateful Beggar,” he picked fights with popular writers Émile Zola and Victor Hugo, got himself banned from the press, and lived in destitution all his days. Nonetheless, throughout his life, he cultivated a group of intellectual devotés who ended up making a tremendous mark on French literature and philosophy. This winter, Lumen Christi is hosting a reading group on The Pilgrim of the Absolute, (Le Pèlerin de L’Absolu) a remarkable compilation sampling widely from Bloy’s works on mystery, money, and the modern world. Please join us if you are interested in discovering and discussing one of the few writers who “knew how to administer the sacrament of literature…”
Schedule:
- Jan. 22: Dolorism
- Introduction to the 1947 Edition by Jacques Maritain
- “Suffering, Faith, Sanctity”
- Jan. 29: Money
- “The Wisdom of the Bourgeois”
- “The Poor Man”
- Feb. 5: Mystery
- “The Sense of Mystery”
- Feb. 12: Art
- “Art and the Pilgrim of the Holy Sepulchre”
- Feb. 19: Christianity and Modernity
- “The Hurler of Curses”
- “Modern Christians”
Series Description:
Graduate Reading Group
Each quarter, the Lumen Christi Institute hosts a number of student-led reading groups at Gavin House (1220 E 58th St.). The reading groups are usually held over a shared meal and all participants are provided a copy of the text. Any graduate interested in a shared reading of a great text is welcome to join. No religious affiliation (or prior knowledge of Tolkien!) is necessary.