Presentation

"Catholic Intellectuals in France in the mid-20th Century"

Following the success of the journée d’étude ‘Engaging with Engagement: French Catholic Thought 1930-50’, held at Magdalen College in May 2010, this conference will continue and extend exploration of different types of French Catholic intellectual engagement during the mid-twentieth century, against the backdrop of the ‘crises’ of civilization of the interwar period through to the war years and beyond. The formation of Catholic identities, in their artistic, philosophical, theological and political manifestations, and the shifting norms and values of political and social commitments in relation to their cultural and theological fault lines, are central to our concerns.

Program

Friday 18 March, Magdalen College

3.00pm-5.00pm

Brian Sudlow, Reading: L’irréalisme du pays réel : Girardian ‘mythe’ and the ‘montée aux extrêmes’ in the late works of Georges Bernanos

Brenna Moore, Fordham: "To Entwine the Living and the Dead" : Women, French Catholicism, and the Wartime Turn to the Past (1940-1945)

Saturday 19 March, Maison Française d’Oxford

9.30am-12.00pm

Stephen Schloesser, Boston College: From mystique to théologique : Messiaen’s ‘ordre nouveau’, 1935-1939

Toby Garfitt, Magdalen College, Oxford: Jean Grenier and the Essai sur l’esprit d’orthodoxie (1938)

Katherine Davies, University of Manchester: Charles Du Bos and his Politics of Sincerity

12.15pm-1.30pm

Round table

(including follow-up discussion of last year’s journée d’étude) over lunch

Conveners:

• Toby Garfitt, Magdalen College and
• Katherine Davies, University of Manchester

There is no registration fee, but do contact matthew.chan@magd.ox.ac.uk, toby.garfitt@magd.ox.ac.uk or katherine.davies-3@manchester.ac.uk if you would like to attend.