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Heroic Christianity: Tolerance, Courage, and Conviction in Willa Cather’s ‘Death comes for the Archbishop’
3rd March: 4:00 pm - 5:00 pm GMT
Willa Cather’s most famous book Death Comes for the Archbishop (1927), based on the true story of two nineteenth-century French missionaries to New Mexico, is regularly listed among the greatest American novels of the twentieth century. In it, Cather addresses the theme of this series: the paradoxical relationship between the Church’s missionary task and the Christian call to recognize and accept the culture and character of others. In contrast to most literary treatments of the clergy, her priests are exemplars of a life well lived. The delicate portrayal of Archbishop Latour’s inner and outer religious life, along with that of his childhood friend and companion, the warm, energetic Fr. Vaillant, is a rare celebration of the value of an enlightened, humane, Catholic vocation—written, remarkably, by someone who was not herself Catholic.
In this talk, Clare Asquith will explore Willa Cather’s unusual portrait of two missionary priests who combine spiritual conviction with profound knowledge and respect for diverse classes and cultures, and contrast it with less positive treatments of the Christian clergy in other late nineteenth century and early twentieth century works of fiction. Professor Michael Scott will chair.
This event is sponsored by the Future of the Humanities Project and Blackfriars Hall, Oxford. It is part of the series, Cultural Encounters: Books that Have Made a Difference.
Online. Free and open to all. Registration is required.
Clare Asquith is an independent scholar who lived for many years in Moscow and Ukraine after gaining a starred first in English literature at St. Anne’s College, Oxford. In 2005 she wrote Shadowplay, a study of the impact on Shakespeare’s work of the political and religious upheavals of his time. In 2018 she explored the political subtext of his narrative poems in Shakespeare and the Resistance. Since then, she has published numerous articles and lectured in Europe, the United States, Ukraine, and Russia.
Upcoming events in this series
Barbara Mujica, Georgetown,
3pm, 17 Mar: ‘Cervantes: Don Quixote’
Dominic White O.P.
3pm, 24 Mar: ‘Lucy Beckett: A Postcard from the Volcano’
Maureen Corrigan, Georgetown
31 Mar: ‘F Scott Fitzgerald: The Great Gatsby’
Richard Finn O.P.
7 Apr: ‘Pope Leo XIII: Rerum Novarum’
TBA
14 Apr
Martin Ganeri O.P., The Angelicum (PUST)
28 Apr: ‘The Hindu Scripture Bhagavad Gita’
Contact:
Las Casas Institute with Georgetown University
lascasas@bfriars.ox.ac.uk