Becoming a Catholic Writer
From a “medieval” Sicilian-Mexican childhood in Los Angeles to the halls of Harvard, acclaimed poet Dana Gioia explores the tension between faith and secular meritocracy. Discover why the former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts advocates for the “vocation of the quitter” in this profound reflection on beauty, poetry, and the Catholic imagination.
Experience the Event
Presented by de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture
From a “medieval” Sicilian-Mexican childhood in Los Angeles to the halls of Harvard, acclaimed poet Dana Gioia explores the tension between faith and secular meritocracy. Discover why the former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts advocates for the “vocation of the quitter” in this profound reflection on beauty, poetry, and the Catholic imagination.
Men and women of faith continue to draw on the wisdom, wonder, and beauty of the evergreen Catholic tradition to inform a particular mode of understanding and engaging with the world around them. Inspired by a sacramental vision of reality, the Catholic arts in particular grapple with the mystery and meaning that permeate the created order, giving shape and expression to the transcendent.
At its 24th annual Fall Conference, the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture considered the idea of the Catholic imagination, its enduring and inexhaustible nature, and how it continues to illumine our modern world. With a particular focus on the literary arts, the conference explored unique expressions of the Catholic imagination in more than 150 presentations, performances, and discussions across the disciplines, including philosophy, theology, ethics, law, history, and the natural and social sciences, as well as the creative domains of film, music, theater, and the visual arts.
For 2024’s Fall Conference, the de Nicola Center was pleased to partner with the Biennial Catholic Imagination Conference, which aims to enhance the understanding and appreciation of the richness and variety of contributions by Catholic artists; to explore the critical and theoretical foundations of the Catholic imagination; and to foster community and collaboration among writers and readers who share a knowledge of and respect for the Catholic tradition.
MoreMeet the Speaker: Dana Gioia
Dana Gioia is an internationally acclaimed poet, critic, translator, and essayist, and recipient of the 2010 Notre Dame Laetare Medal. He has published six books of poetry and five volumes of literary criticism, as well as opera libretti, song cycles, translations, and over two dozen literary anthologies. His poetry has been anthologized in The Norton Anthology of Poetry and The Oxford Book of American Poetry, among others. At the request of President George W. Bush, Gioia served as the chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) from 2003 to 2009, a role for which he was hailed by Business Week magazine as “The Man Who Saved the NEA.” In 2015, he was named California State Poet Laureate: During his four years in that office, Gioia became the first state laureate to visit all 58 counties in California, where he focused on small and mid-sized communities and participated in more than 100 events with local writers and students.
Meet the Moderator: Jennifer Newsome Martin '07 M.T.S, '12 Ph.D.
Jennifer Newsome Martin ’07 M.T.S., ’12 Ph.D. is a systematic theologian with areas of interest in 19th and 20th century Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox thought, trinitarian theology, theological aesthetics, religion and literature, French feminism, ressourcement theology, and the nature of religious tradition. Her first book, Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Critical Appropriation of Russian Religious Thought (University of Notre Dame Press, 2015), was one of ten winners internationally of the 2017 Manfred Lautenschlaeger Award for Theological Promise. She is co-editor of An Apocalypse of Love: Essays in Honor of Cyril O’ Regan (Herder & Herder, 2018) and the second edition of the forthcoming Blackwell Companion to Catholicism. Over twenty articles and book chapters have appeared in such venues as Modern Theology, Communio: International Catholic Review, The Newman Studies Journal, International Journal of Systematic Theology, and in a number of edited volumes and collections of essays. She serves on the editorial board of Religion & Literature and the University of Notre Dame Press, as well as steering committees of the Hans Urs von Balthasar Consultation of the Catholic Theological Society of America and the Christian Systematic Theology Unit in the American Academy of Religion.