Friday Links: April 24, 2020

Latest links from Dappled Things editors

A Story from A New Decameron

From Pete Candler, curator of A New Decameron,"As you know, The Decameron was written in the middle of the fourteenth century, a particularly eventful time in central Europe, when the Black Plague ravaged the continent. Boccaccio used the Plague as the subtext for his mammoth collection of stories in which ten citizens of Florence flee their hometown to seek sanctuary in the countryside. For ten days, they take turns telling stories to one another to pass the time, and to share in common humanity. . . . I don’t know how many people are going to read Boccaccio these days, but I had a thought: why not recreate the Decameron for our time?" "So Long Ago," by Richard Bausch is a recommended story from the new Decamaron collection.

Writings by Joshua Hren, Friend of Dappled Things and Former Managing Editor

Evelyn Waugh on his first voyage to the United States in 1947

Evelyn Waugh on his first voyage to the United States in 1947

"Great American Fiction and the Catholic Literary Imagination"

This review of Nick Ripatrazone's book, Longing for an Absent God: Faith and Doubt in Great American Fiction, by James Matthew Wilson is at National Review.

Heroes of the Fourth Turning

Said to be "a play both critical and sympathetic to Catholic conservatives," Heroes of the Fourth Turning was given the best drama award by the New York Drama Critic's Circle. It's reviewed in "‘Heroes of the Fourth Turning’ is a haunted play about religious conservatives" at The Outline by B.D. McClay.

Suggestions for an Apologetics that Inverts the Categories of Postmodern Culture

In "The Ultimately Liberal Condition" at First Things April 1995, Roger Lundin wrote persuasively that those "who try to use "the language of postmodern pragmatism as a useful technique for apologetics" run this risk: "to borrow Shakespeare’s image, the Christian who adopts postmodern language is likely to find himself 'hoist with his own petard.'" Lundin advises us to ponder Dietrich Bonhoeffer's observation that the Christian must be worldly, with "the profound this-worldliness characterized by discipline and the constant knowledge of death and resurrection.”

“With cunning, passion, sincerity, and perseverance, Christians may bring to postmodern culture good news that completely inverts the categories of that culture. To an age that believes that freedom makes you true, Christians respond with a more ancient message, 'You shall know the truth, and the truth will make you free.'”

Roseanne T. Sullivan

After a career in technical writing and course development in the computer industry while doing other writing on the side, Roseanne T. Sullivan now writes full-time about sacred music, liturgy, art, and whatever strikes her Catholic imagination. Before she started technical writing, Sullivan earned a B.A. in English and Studio Arts, and an M.A. in English with writing emphasis, and she taught courses in fiction and memoir writing. Her Masters Thesis consisted of poetry, fiction, memoir, and interviews, and two of her short stories won prizes before she completed the M.A. In recent years, she has won prizes in poetry competitions. Sullivan has published many essays, interviews, reviews, and memoir pieces in Catholic Arts Today, National Catholic Register, Religion.Unplugged, The Catholic Thing, and other publications. Sullivan also edits and writes posts on Facebook for the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Worship, Catholic Arts Today, the St. Ann Choir, El Camino Real, and other pages.

https://tinyurl.com/rtsullivanwritings
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