Friday Links, August 20, 2021

+ A podcast discussing Hopkins’ poem, “God’s Grandeur.”

+ Fatima Shaik, only the third African American and the first Black woman to win the 2021 Louisiana Writer’s Award.

+ What would public literary criticism and scholarship mean?

A DISCUSSION OF "GOD'S GRANDEUR": A POEM BY GERARD MANLEY HOPKINS

Katy Carl, Dappled Things Editor in Chief, recommends this podcast in which Stonyhurst scholars Dr Michael D. Hurley, Dr Rebekah Lamb, and Dr Jan Graffius discuss Hopkins's "God's Grandeur.” Natalie Morrill adds: “Hooray! Dr. Lamb is a friend.” The podcast gives an overview of Hopkins's life, the literary and theological richness of his poetry, and some of the ways in which his religious, scientific, and creative imagination was shaped by his experiences at Stonyhurst.

God’s Grandeur

The world is charged with the grandeur of God.

It will flame out, like shining from shook foil;

It gathers to a greatness, like the ooze of oil

Crushed. Why do men then now not reck his rod?

Generations have trod, have trod, have trod;

And all is seared with trade; bleared, smeared with toil;

And wears man's smudge and shares man's smell: the soil

Is bare now, nor can foot feel, being shod.

And for all this, nature is never spent;

There lives the dearest freshness deep down things;

And though the last lights off the black West went

Oh, morning, at the brown brink eastward, springs —

Because the Holy Ghost over the bent

World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.‍

'Economy Hall' author wins 2021 Louisiana Writer Award

Also recommended by Katy Carl, this article by Nate Tinner-Williams at Black Catholic Messenger is about writer Fatima Shaik’s reception of the 2021 Louisiana Writer’s Award. She is only the third African American and the first Black woman to win the award.

Shaik’s book, “Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood,” was released in February and covers the history of a Black Catholic mutual aid society in 19th-century New Orleans.

What would public literary criticism and scholarship mean? What would it look like?

Katy Carl also recommends this essay by Cynthia Haven at Stanford University’s “Book Haven.” Haven writes that the subject of the importance of literature in our everyday lives is dear to her heart, since she considers literature to be “an additional lens to recognize, interpret, and understand the world we see around us.” Haven contributed a chapter to: Publish Scholarship in Literary Studies co-edited by Rosemary Johnsen with Rachel Arteaga.

“Arteaga writes that she was inspired by a 2009 Daedalus article on the future of the humanities. What would public literary scholarship mean? What would public literary criticism look like?”

I have to admit I can’t imagine the answers to those questions posed in the essay—but I’m confident reading the book would help.