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Flannery, philosophy, and film


A conference at Loyola explores the place of writer Flannery O’Connor among philosophers and theologians.


T Father Bosco


he works of Flannery O’Connor are the kind you don’t forget. They stay with you. Often set in the South and revolving around themes of morality, violence, and


religion, O’Connor’s contributions to litera- ture are significant, and, according to Mark Bosco, S.J., PhD, of the English and theology departments, she is one of the most frequently anthologized American authors. A mid-20th- century Southern writer, O’Connor is most well- known for her novel Wise Blood and two short story collections, A Good Man is Hard to Find and Everything That Rises Must Converge, among others. And she was the subject of a three-day conference organized by Fr. Bosco at the Water Tower Campus in October. The conference focused


on the theological and philosophical influences that shaped O’Connor’s imagination. “I thought there was this missing part of the conversation,” says


Fr. Bosco, who has written and presented on O’Connor in the past. Her work, often catego- rized as Southern Gothic, is heavily influenced by the author’s devout Catholicism and has been widely studied by Catholic scholars. “She takes us on a journey and then reverses


our expectations—usually through violence or shock to the pride of a character,” says Fr. Bosco. “They’re like parables. We still use the stories of


the Good Samaritan or the Prodigal Son to think about who we are in the eyes of a transcendent reality.” Fr. Bosco believes O’Connor’s work traces similar themes. “She has that reversal of fortune, that sense of a journey.” Fr. Bosco felt that scholars had not ad-


dressed how deeply engaged O’Connor was with philosophers and theologians, both of the Catholic tradition and the era in which she lived. “She read Thomas Aquinas and Augustine, but also Heidegger and Freud,” says Fr. Bosco, who wanted to explore O’Connor’s place within the canon. The conference, Revelation and Convergence:


Flannery O’Connor Among the Philosophers and Theologians, took two years to plan. In the end, it featured 63 papers and screenings of video in- terviews with O’Connor’s friends and associates. One hundred and fifty people attended. Some of the papers will be chosen for a collection by Oxford University Press, and Fr. Bosco, Elizabeth Coffman of the School of Communication, and Christopher O’Hare, who produced the inter- view footage, hope to complete an hour-long documentary film on O’Connor for PBS.


Father Garanzini procured an original sculpture of Flannery O’Connor by the Roman artist Valentina Mazzei for the conference. It is on view at the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage, which, along with the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost, and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, sponsored the conference.


20 LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO


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