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A study group at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College takes its studies outside at the Barry’s Bay, Ont., school.
Photo courtesy Our Lady Seat of Wisdom
July 22, 2024
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Teachers, writers and creatives will gather at Our Lady Seat of Wisdom College (SWC) in August for a four-day exploration of “Literature and the Catholic imagination.”
The 14th Wojtyla Summer Institute for Teachers will feature novelist Randy Boyagoda and SWC writer-in-residence Michael O’Brien.
Conference organizer Dr. Natasha Duquette says that the participation of the two Canadian Catholic novelists in the summer workshop is “kind of a big deal.” She said Boyagoda and O’Brien enjoy a higher profile in the United States than Canada, and the opportunity to “foreground” the two Canadians at the Ontario liberal arts college in Barry’s Bay, Ont., is significant.
“It's a big deal even though we're such a little place,” said Duquette.
The topic is also something of a first for Canada.
“There have been similar conferences in the United States, but this is the only one yet that we’re aware of happening in Canada. Canadian Catholics who are creative writers, teachers and professors are very excited to have this happening on our own soil,” said Duquette.
The notion of the “Catholic imagination” is one that has truly captured both teachers and students alike.
“There is excitement around this topic of the Catholic imagination right now. I think as we are recovering from the pandemic, people have various anxieties right now, and delving into the imagination in a faithful way is very encouraging and soothing to people,” said Duquette.
Dr. Karl Persson, assistant professor of literature and conference co-organizer, says that this is especially true for Generation Z, the cohort that makes up the current undergraduate population.
“I have noticed this interest in the upcoming generation in creativity and self-expression. For the last couple of years on campus, we've had students start a creative writing group doing just the thing that this conference is doing — looking to creatively write in a way that is faithful to the students' Catholic faith. There is a hunger for that,” said Persson.
“I think part of it is also the hunger for community, not just writing, but writing in community, reading each other's pieces, sharing ideas and inspiring one another. This is the generation coming out of the pandemic. They've been sort of locked down and very isolated. They recognize writing, creativity and imagination as a positive way to connect with each other.”
The summer institute was first designed as a resource for Catholic primary and secondary teachers working in the public school system. Persson told The Catholic Register “it originated as an institute for teachers who were looking to further their education in relation to their Catholic faith, but it has moved beyond just teachers coming, and it is open to anybody who has interest in the topics.”
“I think that the fellowship aspect, being with like-minded Catholic teachers, is a big part of it for those who come in person. There's a lot that happens just sitting around tables, eating together and having conversations that is as important as the lectures and the speakers,” said Persson.
Keynote speaker Boyagoda, novelist, biographer and professor of literature at the University of Toronto, made a splash in Catholic literary circles in 2013 when he penned an essay for the journal First Things that began with the sentence, “I’m sick of Flannery O’Connor.” Not only was he sick of celebrated, Catholic novelist and short story writer O’Connor, but he was also sick of “Walker Percy, G. K. Chesterton, J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Dostoevsky.”
He explained that he wasn’t really commenting on the novelists themselves, but rather on how they seemed to be the only ones that “religiously minded readers” ever read or talked about. This year, Boyagoda promises to explain in his keynote how “I stopped being sick of Flannery O’Connor.”
Our Lady Seat of Wisdom, founded at the beginning of the millennium, took a significant step forward this year in both broadening and deepening its academic offerings. Students can now enroll in a four-year Bachelor of Arts program with majors in History, Literature and Classical and Early Christian Studies. Previously, the college offered only a three-year Bachelor of Catholic Studies degree.
Duquette says the response to the new program has been positive.
“Since we added online that they can choose the Bachelor of Arts, 78 per cent of our incoming students are choosing the four-year degree.”
The Wojtyla Summer Institute for Teachers will run Aug. 8-11 in Combermere, Ont. The registration deadline is July 29.
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