Water Tower Campus
Lewis Tower, Regents Hall, 16th floor, main venue for all plenary sessions
Thursday October 6
Thursday’s program of events is generously sponsored by Loyola University’s Joan and Bill Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage.
9:00-noon Registration
Noon-1:30 Lunch and Introduction to the Conference
Rev. Mark Bosco, S.J.
O’Connor in Context
1:30-3:30 Panel Session I
Panel One: On the Global Stage
· Moderator: Michael O’Connell
· Chris Wachal: “Do as you done in Milledgeville”: Kwame Appiah and the Locality of Ethics in the Short Stories of Flannery O’Connor.
· Tjerk de Reus: O'Connor in the Netherlands: Does she shout hard enough?
· Elizabeth Geoghegan: “Unholy Anguish”: Teaching Flannery O’Connor in Rome.
· Farrell O’Gorman: Pilgrimage and Eucharist in A Good Man Is Hard to Find: Borders, Bodies, Consumption.
Panel Two: The Angelic Doctor
· Moderator: Brent Little
· Angela Knobel: Burning Away the Virtues: Flannery O’Connor and the Thomistic Distinction Between Infused and Acquired Virtue.
· Benjamin Peters: Hillbilly Thomism in a Two-Tiered Universe: Flannery O’Connor and the American Neo-Thomists.
· Christopher Gross: The Unredeemed Prophet: An Examination of the Gift of Prophecy in the Works of St. Thomas Aquinas and Flannery O’Connor.
· Jane Kelley Rodeheffer: Joy’s Sorrow: The Role of Acedia in Flannery O’Connor’s “Good Country People.”
Panel Three: Among the French
· Moderator: Rev. Mark Bosco, S.J.
· Denise Fidia: Poetic Knowledge in Jacques Maritain and Flannery O’Connor.
· Stephen E. Lewis: Flannery O’Connor and the Fictional Knowledge of another’s Heart.
· Michael P. Murphy: Breaking Bodies: Flannery O’Connor and the Aesthetics of Consecration.
· Stephen Baarendse: “Mauriac is One of My Admirations.”
3:30 Break
4:00-5:30 Plenary Addresses I:
John F. Desmond
Flannery O’Connor, Fyodor Dostoevsky and the Abandoned Children of God John F. Desmond, Professor of English Emeritus at Whitman College, is author of Risen Sons: Flannery O’Connor’s Vision of History (1987); Walker Percy’s Search for Community (2005); and Gravity and Grace: Seamus Heaney and the Force of Light (2009).
Christina Bieber Lake
“God made me thisaway and I don’t dispute hit”: Flannery O’Connor and the New Science of Morality
Christina Bieber Lake is associate professor of English at Wheaton College, and the author of The Incarnational Art of Flannery O'Connor (2005). She is at work on Prophets of the Posthuman, a project that interrogates, through fiction, the motives behind the use of human enhancement technologies.
5:30 Cocktail Reception and Tour of the Martin D’Arcy Collection of Medieval, Renaissance and Baroque Art
6:30-8:00 Conference Dinner and Special Plenary Address:
William Sessions
“Only God is an atheist”: Flannery O’Connor’s Newly Discovered Journal
William Sessions is Regent’s Professor Emeritus at Georgia State University, and the author of the forthcoming authorized biography of Flannery O'Connor, scheduled for release in 2011.
Friday October 7
Friday’s program of events is generously sponsored by Loyola University’s Office of the Provost, the Office of the Dean, and the College of Arts and Sciences.
8:30-9:00 Coffee and Pastries
9:00- 10:30 Panel Session II
Panel Four: Poets
· Moderator: Elizabeth Geoghegan
· Kimberly Connor: Mystery and Bad Manners: Flannery O’Connor and Mary Karr.
· Karl Martin: Shutting Down the Open Road: Reading O’Connor through Her Influence on Bruce Springteen’s Nebraska.
· Rev. Mark Bosco, S.J.: The Pied Beauty of Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction.
Panel Five: Vision
· Moderator: Christopher Wachal
· Thomas More Donnelly: Loosening Our Grip: Displacement, Transfiguration, and Vision in “The Displaced Person.”
· Jesse Perillo: Vulnerability, Violence, and Vision in Flannery O’Connor and Simone Weil.
· Elizabeth Weber: O'Connor and the Church: The Power of the Holy Ghost.
10:30 Break
11:00-12:30 Plenary Addresses II:
Hank Edmondson
“God, kid . . . . He thinks he’s Jesus Christ!”: Flannery O'Connor, Russell Kirk, and the Problem of Misguided Humanitarianism
Henry T. Edmondson is professor of Political Science at Georgia College & State University, Milledgeville. Interested in politics and literature, he is the author of Return to Good and Evil: Flannery O’Connor’s Response to Nihilism (2005).
Ben Alexander
Good Things Out of Nazareth: The Letters of Flannery O’Connor, Father McCown, and Friends.
Ben Alexander is editor of Good Things Out of Nazareth: Letters of Flannery O’Connor and Caroline Gordon and Confessions of a “Miseducated” Novelist: Walker Percy’s Essays and Book Reviews. He is also completing a critical study of Dante’s influence on Flannery O’Connor, Leaving the Dark Wood: Divine Comedy in O’Connor and Dante.
12:30-2:00 Conference Lunch
2:00-4:00 Panel Session III
Panel Six: Twentieth Century Theologians I
· Moderator: Michael P. Murphy
· Rev. Damian Ference: The Specificity of the Person of Christ According to Flannery O’Connor and Benedict XVI.
· Elizabeth M. Smith: Rahner, Fries, and the Unified Church.
· Edwin Block: Flannery O’Connor, Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Mystery of Human Existence.
· Katherine LeNotre: Seeing the Form in “Parker’s Back.”
Panel Seven: Theological Dialogues
· Moderator: Kimberly Connor
· Tim Basselin: O’Connor in Dialog with Deborah Creamer's Theology of Limits.
· Michael Bruner: “Whom have I in heaven but Thee?” Friedrich and Flannery in Conversation.
· Tom Wetzel: The Kingdom of Heaven Suffering Violence: O’Connor contra Hauerwas on the Nature of God’s Kingdom.
· Scott Forschler: Flannery O’Connor and Zen Buddhism: Surprising Convergence.
Panel Eight: Literary Comparisons
· Moderator: Joyce Wexler
· Richard Bautch: Hazel Motes and Eli Peck: Coincidentia Oppositorum.
· Michael Jordan: Flannery O’Connor and the Southwestern Humorists.
· Susana Cavallo: Unbelieving Searchers: The Fictional Characters of Flannery O’Connor and Miguel de Unamuno.
· Richard Corneil: Ruby Turpin’s Life without Bitterness.
4:00 Break
4:30-6:00 Plenary Addresses III:
Susan Srigley
Flannery O’Connor and Martin Buber: Ethics and the Eclipse of God
Susan Srigley, professor of religious ethics and literature at Nipissing University (Canada), is the author of Flannery O’Connor’s Sacramental Art (2004), and the editor of and a contributor to the forthcoming collection of essays, Dark Faith: New Essays on Flannery O'Connor's The Violent Bear It Away, to be published by the University of Notre Dame Press.
Rev. Stephen Schloesser, S.J.
On the Threshold of the Apocalypse (1947): Bloy's Centenary, Israel's Passion, Displaced Persons
Fr. Schloesser, associate professor of History at Loyola University Chicago, is the author of Jazz Age Catholicism: Mystic Modernism in Postwar Paris, 1919-1933 (2005).
Dinner on your own in Chicago
Saturday October 8
Saturday’s program is generously sponsored by Rev. Michael Garanzini, S.J., President of Loyola University Chicago.
8:30-9:00 Coffee and Pastries
9:00-10:30 Panel Session IV
Panel Nine: Among the Mystics
· Moderator: Jesse Perillo
· George Piggford: Mrs. May’s Dark Night in “Greenleaf.”
· Roxanne Y. Schwab: “More thorns than roses”: The Enormity of 'Smallness' in the Fictions of Flannery O'Connor and St. Terese of Lisieux.
· Betsy Cunneen: “The Remarkable Unaided Work of Young Ladies”: Flannery O’Connor and Adrienne von Speyr’s Insights into Grace.
Panel Ten: The Power of the Imagination
· Moderator: Bruce Gentry
· Rev. Gerald J. Bednar: Empty Boxes and Wet Corpses: Lonergan, Lynch and the Power of Flannery O’Connor.
· Richard Rosengarten: The Catholic Sophocles? The Power and Limits of the (Greek) Tragic in O’Connor’s (Catholic) Stories.
· Margaret Wye: A Work in Progress: The Refining of Two Extremes, O’Connor’s Faith and Her Chosen Profession.
10:30 Break
11:00-12:30 Plenary Addresses IV:
Rev. Leo O’Donovan, S.J.
Writing into Mystery: Flannery O’Connor and the Incomprehensibility of God
Fr. O’Donovan, theologian and President Emeritus of Georgetown University, is currently a contributing art critic for Commonweal Magazine and America Magazine
Steve Watkins
The Convergence of Flannery O’Connor and Pierre Teilhard de ChardinSteve Watkins, who teaches for the University of Phoenix, is author of Flannery O'Connor and Teilhard de Chardin: A Journey Together towards Hope and Understanding about the World (2010).
12:30-2:00 Lunch on your own in Chicago
2:00-4:00 Panel Session V
Panel Eleven: Twentieth Century Theologians II
· Moderator: Thomas More Donnelly
· Kathleen Lipovski-Helal: O’Connor, Teilhard, Mary Ann: A Moment Towards Convergence.
· Derek Hatch: Return to the Sources: Flannery O’Connor as a Theologian of La Nouvelle Théologie.
· Robert Cook, O.F.M.: “You are a very ignorant boy”: Romano Guardini’s Theology of Dogma in “The Enduring Chill.”
· Michael O’Connell: Francis Marion Tarwater at The End of the Modern World: O'Connor, Guardini, and the Limits of Reason.
Panel Twelve: Psychology and Consciousness
· Moderator: Roxanne Y. Schwab
· Benjamin J. Wilson: The Meaning of a Story: Echoes of Psychoanalysis and Mimetic Desire in “A View of the Woods.”
· Paul Wakeman: The Sacred Unconscious: O’Connor’s Psyche.
· Douglas Haynes: Flannery O’Connor’s Displaced Persons: Unhappy Consciousness and Black Humor.
· Tara Flanagan: The Theologically Normative Body in Flannery O’ Connor’s “A Temple of the Holy Ghost.”
Panel Thirteen: Existentialism and Its Heirs
· Moderator: Craig Amason
· Pamela Henney: Experimenting with Nietzsche.
· Larry Harwood: Nietzsche’s ‘Last Men’ and O’Connor’s Dead Men as Symptoms of Last Days.
· Karl Aho: The Fearful and Trembling Bear it Away: Søren Kierkegaard and Flannery.
· Dan Wood: Misfits, Anarchy, and the Absolute: Interpreting O’Connor through Levinasian Themes.
Panel Fourteen: Church Fathers and Prophets
· Moderator: Farrell O’Gorman
· Rev. Andrew J. Garavel, S.J.: The ‘All-demanding Eyes’: An Augustinian Reading of “Parker’s Back.”
· Jessica Hooten: The Influence of Saints on the Heathen Manuscripts.
· Brent Little: Confronting Modern Idolatry: The Prophet’s Call to Repentance.
· Angela Russell Christman: Seeking Paradise in “The River.”
4:00-5:30 Plenary Addresses V
Avis Hewitt
“Jolted Back to Life by Her Touch”: Martin C. D’Arcy’s Eros and Agape in Flannery O’Connor
Avis Hewitt, associate professor of English at Grand Valley State University Michigan, is the co-editor of Flannery O’Connor in the Age of Terrorism: Essays on Violence and Grace (2010). She currently is working on a manuscript entitled Flannery O'Connor and the Uses of Eros.
Ralph C. Wood
Living and Dying upon Dogma: John Henry Newman and Flannery O'Connor on Christian Formation.
Ralph C. Wood, Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University, is author of The Comedy of Redemption: Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists (1988); Contending for the Faith: The Church’s Engagement with Culture (2003); The Gospel According to Tolkien: Visions of the Kingdom in Middle-earth (2004); Flannery O’Connor and the Christ-Haunted South (2004); and Literature and Theology (Abingdon, 2008); and the upcoming G. K. Chesterton and the Nightmare Goodness of God (2011).
5:30-6:30 Holy Mass in Remembrance of Flannery O’Connor (Sunday Mass observance)
6:30-9:00 Final Reception and Dinner
Special Showing: Excerpts from Christopher O’Hare’s documentary interviews with O’Connor’s friends and family.
Other Program Notes:
· The sculpture gracing the entranceway of the Regents Hall Conference Room is an original work by the Roman artist Valentina Mazzei. Based on the famous photo of Flannery O’Connor sitting at a book party to celebrate the publication of her first novel, Wise Blood, the sculptor captures the grace and playful wit of the writer early in her career. The organizers of the conference wish to thank Fr. Michael Garanzini, S.J., for procuring the sculpture for Loyola University’s Joan and Bill Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Tradition.
· A map of the Lake Shore Campus that highlights Lewis, Baumhart, and Corboy.
· Special thanks to the following who helped make this conference possible:
o Dr. Roxanne Y. Schwab (Lindenwood University), Assistant Director of the conference
o Mr. Michael O’Connell and Mr. Brent Little, Loyola University graduate assistants for the conference
o Mr. Randall Newman, registration
o Mr. Christopher O’Hare, for his generous gift of documentary interviews
o Dr. Michael Schuck, Director of the Hank Center for the Catholic Intellectual Heritage, Loyola University Chicago
o Dr. Frank Fennell, Dean of Loyola’s College of Arts and Sciences
o Dr. John Pelissaro, Provost, Loyola University Chicago
o Rev. Michael Garanzini, S.J., President of Loyola University Chicago
