Writing the first full history of Black Catholic women religious in the United States, Shannen Dee Williams experienced the gamut of human emotions.
Literature
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
‘How to Read (and Write) Like a Catholic’: A guide to crafting authentic, faithful fiction
Does Christian literary expression hover as “something between a dead language and a hangover”? Have Catholic artists “ceded the arts to secular society”? In response to what might be considered a literary call to action comes a new book by Joshua Hren.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
On the road again: William Least Heat-Moon’s ‘Blue Highways’ turns 40
Forty years after its publication, Jon Sweeney revisits ‘Blue Highways’ and its iconoclastic author.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Leonard Feeney said there was no salvation outside the Catholic church. Then he was excommunicated.
One of America’s finest literary talents, Leonard Feeney, S.J., rose to national prominence in the 1940s—but not for his prose or poetry.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: What would the great silent film clown Buster Keaton make of the smartphone era?
In “Camera Man,” the critic Dana Stevens uses the biography of the great silent film clown as a lens to explore the early days of movies, the cultural forces that gave them birth and the social upheavals they in turn engendered.
Posted inArts & Culture, Catholic Book Club
Talking truth and lies with the Norwegian novelist who won the Nobel Prize
Sigrid Undset wrote the famous “Kristin Lavransdatter” trilogy and won the Nobel Prize. She also was a sometime contributor to America during the Second World War after the Nazi invasion of Norway had forced her into exile.
Posted inArts & Culture, Vantage Point
Sigrid Undset on lies, truths and the Catholic writer
Sigrid Undset, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928, contributed numerous articles to America, including this 1942 essay on Catholic writers.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: Finding our way back to the farm
Half memoir of farm life, half manifesto against modern agricultural practices, James Rebanks’s ‘Pastoral Song: A Farmer’s Journey’ urges us to return to our agrarian roots.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: How to live a scholarly life with gratitude and grace
In his new memoir, John W. O’Malley reflects on a life of priestly ministry and teaching, and offers lessons on how to live a scholarly life.
Posted inArts & Culture, Books
Review: It’s good to be king. It’s better to be Caesar.
In ‘Twelve Caesars,’ Mary Beard analyzes the reception and adaptation of ancient Roman imperial portraits in Western European and American art from the 15th century to the present.