Flannery O’Connor on Imagination, Solitude, and the Oddities of Life

I recently participated in a panel discussion with three other women on the fiction of Flannery O’Connor, which was hosted by the Collegium Institute at the University of Pennsylvania. In this discussion, I address the reasons why she called herself a “hillbilly Thomist”, the sense in which she believed our culture was “Christ haunted”, and her use of vision as a metaphor for the artist. I’m also excited that I’ll be teaching The Violent Bear it Away for the Collegium Institute faith in fiction series.

Of course, fans of the podcast may remember that I also dedicated the very first episode of Sacred and Profane Love to the fiction of Flannery O’Connor. You can access that conversation here, in case you missed it: