released 8/2/2024

In this Conversation, Ken Myers talks with Fr. Damian Ference, author of Understanding the Hillbilly Thomist: The Philosophical Foundations of Flannery O’Connor’s Narrative Art (Word on Fire, 2023). Fr. Ference explores the depths to which O’Connor was steeped in Thomistic philosophy, as evidenced by her reading habits, letters, prayer journal, and, of course, essays and fiction. He also discusses the influence on O’Connor of Étienne Gilson and Jacques Maritain. Her “graced attentiveness” and commitment as an artist to reality in her work, Ference says, allowed her to “novelize philosophy” in a powerful and non-didactic manner. Ference and Myers discuss O’Connor’s contrarian nature, struggle with suffering, sense of humor, use of violence in her fiction, and sense of calling to honor God as an artist.

48 minutes

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In his book Monsieur Maritain, Meet Miss O’Connor: An Imaginary Dialogue, Joseph Nicolello weaves a conversation about the grand theme of “mystery and manners,” the interdependence of doing, making, thinking, and feeling, and the requisites of literary culture. In this Friday Feature, Nicolello talks with Ken Myers about some of the themes in his dialogue, and about the dire conditions in literary studies that prompted him to imagine it.

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