The Art of Encounter: Catholic Writers from the Margins
Friday, October 20, 2023 - Saturday, October 21, 2023 | Stokes S195 | Please register to attend
Please note that this conference will only be available to attend in person and will not be streamed online.
As part of the official opening of the 2021-2023 synod, Pope Francis reminded those present that every encounter calls for openness, and a willingness to let ourselves be challenged by the presence and stories of others. In continuity with the Boston College commitment to a liberal arts education in the Jesuit tradition, The Art of Encounter: Catholic Writers from the Margins conference seeks to build on the Jesuit ideal of “seeing God in all things” and “training men and women for others” by responding to this call from Francis’ to undertake “encounter” as an approach to others. As Francis has argued, “the experience of encounter changes us; frequently it opens up new and unexpected possibilities.”
The Art of Encounter conference seeks to respond to Francis’ call to “widen the tent” in order to welcome individuals and groups marginalized within the Catholic community because of gender, sexual identity, and ecclesiastical political identities, through encountering the stories told by poets and writers. With particular attention to listening to those creative voices that have not always been fully heard within the Catholic community, we have selected keynote speakers that integrate and wrestle with Catholic faith, speaking from the margins of the Catholic community towards its center. The first keynote and Saturday’s Workshop will be led by Irish poet Pádraig Ó Tuama, host of the On Being associate podcast Poetry Unbound and author of several poetry collections including his most recent, Feed the Beast. Pádraig writes as both a poet and a theologian, an LGBTQ+ activist, and was the leader of the Corrymeela Community—Ireland’s oldest peace and reconciliation organization—for five years. Our second keynote speaker is Alice McDermott, Richard A. Macksey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and author of eight novels, including several that were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, and a founder of a group that seeks to engage all of the faithful in renewing the Church. A frequent visitor to Boston College, Alice has been profiled in Boston College Magazine on her Catholic faith.
In addition to the two keynotes, there will be a presentation by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, writer, poet, and professor at Fordham University and associate director of its Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Kim Garcia, poet and teacher in BC’s English department and Allison Adair, associate professor of the practice (BC English), will host a panel on “Identity and the Catholic Imagination” with trans author R/B Mertz. Alongside the presentations will be substantial time for an afternoon reception and book signings in Burns Library.
Our hope is that students and other conference participants will have the opportunity of encountering both the authors themselves and their powerful ideas and stories, and in the process glimpse and contribute to a more capacious understanding of what the Catholic community might be, standing close to the heart of BC’s liberal arts education goal: to broaden our understanding of how encountering “the other” might be rich and fulfilling, opening up new possibilities of the richness and multiplicity of the real world—in a word, to finding God in all things.
Sponsored by Boston College’s The Institute for the Liberal Arts; Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life; Lonergan Institute; Burns Library; and Irish Studies, as well as Fordham University’s Curran Center for Catholic Studies.
Special thanks to Susan Richard, Administrative Assistant, and Madeline Jarrett, Graduate Research Assistant, at the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life for all their guidance and expertise.
We are also especially grateful to: Mary Crane and the board of The Institute for the Liberal Arts at Boston College for their generous grant support; Christian Dupont and BC’s Burns Library; BC’s Lonergan Institute; Fordham University’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies; BC’s English Department and Irish Studies; and the incredible team at BC’s Center for Centers, especially Stephanie Querzoli, Gaurie Pandey, Joanne Nesdekidis, and Susan Dunn.
Schedule and RegistrationFriday, October 20, 2023 | Stokes S195 | Please register to attend | |
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| 7:30 PM | Conference Welcome: Mark Massa, SJ
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| 7:40 PM | Keynote: Pádraig Ó Tuama“The Devil’s in the Details: Literature and Language as a Way to Salvation" |
Saturday, October 21, 2023 | Stokes S195 | Please register to attend
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| 8:30-9:00 AM | Registration and Continental Breakfast
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| 9:00-10:00 AM | Opening Talk: Angela Alaimo O'Donnell"The Out-cast & the Dis-understood: Poetry & the Practice of Love" |
| 10:15-11:30 AM | Poetry Workshop
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| 11:30-12:30 PM | Lunch | Gasson 100
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| 1:00-2:30 PM | “Identity and the Catholic Imagination” | Burns Library Panel with R/B Mertz, Kim Garcia, and Allison Adair |
| 2:45-3:45 PM | Light Refreshments and Book Signings | Burns Library |
| 4:00-5:30 PM | Plenary Lecture/Reading: Alice McDermott |
| 6:00 PM | Mass | St. Mary’s Chapel Mark Massa, S.J., presiding |
Speakers
Pádraig Ó Tuama
Irish poet and theologian Pádraig Ó Tuama’s work centers around themes of language, power, conflict and religion. He is the author of several books of poetry and prose: Feed the Beast, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community, In the Shelter, Sorry for your Troubles, and Readings from the Books of Exile. Ó Tuama is also the host of the popular podcast Poetry Unbound, which immerses the listener into one poem every week, and the author of the collection, Poetry Unbound, an expansion on the podcast that offers reflections on fifty powerful poems. He splits his time between Ireland and NYC.
Alice McDermott
Alice McDermott’s novel, Absolution, will be published in October by Farrar, Straus & Giroux. Her eight previous novels have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, the National Book Award, the PEN/Faulkner Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her novel Charming Billy won the National Book Award for fiction. Her stories and essays have appeared in The New Yorker, Harpers, The New York Times, Commonweal and elsewhere. For over two decades she was the Richard A. Mackey Professor of the Humanities at Johns Hopkins University and a member of the faculty of the Sewanee Writers Conference.
R/B Mertz
R/B Mertz (they/them) was homeschooled by Catholic fundamentalists and attended one of the most conservative colleges in the U.S. before coming out as a queer butch dyke poet in 2007 and as trans/non-binary in 2015. Their memoir, Burning Butch, was published in 2022 by Unnamed Press. They have published work in Another Chicago Review, Guernica Magazine, Arc Poetry Magazine, Fence, Autostraddle, Christian Century, and elsewhere. Their book of poems, CU T, will be released in early 2024 by Threadsuns Press. They now live in Toronto and are at work on a second memoir, Boy or Girl, which has been supported by a grant from the Toronto Arts Council. They teach writing at Sheridan College.
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, PhD
Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, PhD is a professor, poet, scholar, and writer at Fordham University in New York City, and serves as Associate Director of Fordham’s Curran Center for American Catholic Studies. Her publications include two chapbooks and eight full-length collections of poems. Her most recent book of poems Holy Land (2022) won the Paraclete Press Poetry Prize. In addition, O’Donnell has published a memoir about caring for her dying mother, Mortal Blessings: A Sacramental Farewell; a book of hours based on the practical theology of Flannery O’Connor, The Province of Joy; and a biography Flannery O’Connor: Fiction Fired by Faith. The latter won the Catholic Press Association Prize for best biography in 2015. Her ground-breaking critical book on Flannery O’Connor Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O’Connor was published by Fordham University Press in 2020. O’Donnell’s ninth book of poems, Dear Dante, will be released by Paraclete Press in Spring 2024.
Kim Garcia
Kim Garcia is the author of The Brighter House, DRONE, Madonna Magdalene and Tales of the Sisters. Her poems have appeared or are forthcoming in IMAGE, AGNI, The Southern Review and elsewhere. Garcia teaches creative writing at Boston College.
Allison Adair
Allison Adair is author of The Clearing, winner of the Max Ritvo Poetry Prize. Her poems appear in Best American Poetry, Threepenny, Kenyon Review, and ZYZZYVA, and have received the Pushcart Prize, the Florida Review Editors’ Award, and the Orlando Prize. She is originally from central Pennsylvania.
Mary Elliot
Mary Elliot is assistant director of the Lonergan Institute. She received her M.A. in Philosophy from Boston College in 2020. Her writing has been published in The Peabody Journal of Education, Academy Journal, and Macrina Magazine, among others.
Mark Massa, S.J., Th.D.
Mark Massa, S.J., Th.D. is director of the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life. He is a church historian who studies Catholicism in the U.S. in the twentieth century. He is the author of seven books, the most recent of which is The Structure of Theological Revolutions: How Humanae Vitae Shaped Debates About Natural Law.
Campus Map and Parking
Campus Map and Parking:
Parking is available at the nearby Beacon Street and Commonwealth Avenue Garages.
Boston College is also accessible via public transportation (MBTA B Line - Boston College).
Boston College strongly encourages conference participants to receive the COVID-19 vaccination before attending events on campus.
Resources
Read more:
- Adair, Allison. The Clearing: Poems. First edition. Minneapolis, MN: Milkweed Editions, 2020.
- Garcia, Kim. The Brighter House. Buffalo, NY: White Pine Press, 2016.
- McDermott, Alice. After This. New York, NY: Dell Publishing, 2007.
- McDermott, Alice. Charming Billy. First edition. New York, NY: Farrar Straus and Giroux, 1998.
- Mertz, R/B. Burning Butch. Los Angeles, CA: Unnamed Press, 2022.
- O'Donnell, Angela Alaimo. Holy Land: Poems. Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 2022.
- O'Donnell, Angela Alaimo. “Love in the Time of Coronavirus: Wherein We Realize This Is Not Temporary.” Spiritus 21, no. 1 (2021): 151–151. https://doi.org/10.1353/scs.2021.0019.
- Ó Tuama, Pádraig. Poetry Unbound: 50 Poems to Open Your World. New York, NY: W.W. Norton & Company, 2022.
- Ó Tuama, Pádraig. Readings from the Book of Exile. Norwich, England: Canterbury Press, 2012.
- Ó Tuama, Pádraig, and Jordan, Glenn. Borders and Belonging: the Book of Ruth: a Story for Our Times. Norwich, England: Canterbury Press, 2021.
News:
In this article published recently in The Irish Independent, Pádraig Ó Tuama – one of the keynote speakers for our conference, “The Art of the Encounter: Catholic Writers from the Margins” – describes the power of poetry. Ó Tuama reflects on the significance of poetic expression: “I think we turn to poetry because somehow we trust that language has the capacity to tell us something about ourselves.” As we prepare for the conference, his powerful words invite us to open ourselves up to the transformative effect that poetry can have on us and the way that it can offer meaning and guidance in the midst of life’s uncertainties.