Graduate program aims to reverse decline seen in Catholic art, literature
Apr 6, 2021 catholic news service
Joshua Hren, a fiction writer and publisher of Wiseblood Books, is seen in this undated photo. He is the co-founder of a new online master s degree program in writing Catholic fiction and poetry at the University of St. Thomas in Houston. (Credit: CNS photo/Courtesy Mike Mastromatteo.)
The creation of a new master s of fine arts degree program in creative writing at the University of St. Thomas in Houston marks a breakthrough in a resurgence of Catholic literary arts, said its founders.
The creation of a new master’s of fine arts degree program in creative writing at the University of St. Thomas in Houston marks a breakthrough in a resurgence of Catholic literary arts, said its founders.
Hillsdale Collegian
Catholic college rejects modern technology
Wyoming Catholic College s technology policy does not allow students to have phones on campus
An instructor holding a foreboding plastic bag greets Wyoming Catholic College freshmen.
“Put your phone in,” the instructor says, indicating the open Ziplock.
After parting with their most-loved appendage, the students embark on a three week camping trip through the Wind River Range or the more rugged Teton Mountains ,which they navigate using old-fashioned paper maps and the stars.
Even students who manage to sneak their phone on the trip don’t get an opportunity to use them.
I recently finished two novels. One is by Glenn Arbery,
Boundaries of Eden. It’s a thoroughly engaging story set in the history-haunted South. One part Dickens in its arresting characters, one part Tom Wolfe in its splendid eye for social reality, and one part Faulkner in its evocation of the encroaching darkness of our sin-soaked past,
Boundaries of Eden is a must-read.
The other novel I recently read is
The Idiot by Elif Batuman. The opening pages feature mordant observations about elite miseducation that can be very funny. Batuman is a writer’s writer, creating a character who sees but does not know, observes but does not understand. Unlike the odious Jean-Paul Sartre, whose fiction is far too “philosophical,” and not unlike Walker Percy, Batuman captures the “lostness” of the human condition as a reality, not an idea.