Summer Fridays with Flannery

Each week, participants will be provided with one short story to read, along with optional supplementary readings taken from her letters and essays; we will meet during the noon hour (Eastern Time) of four Fridays in mid-summer (July 11, 18, 25 and August 1) over Zoom, to discuss the story. Over our four weeks together, we will look at the development of her style and subject matter, paying particular attention to the spiritual themes in her work. We will discuss O’Connor’s Southern gothic sensibility; her treatment of racism and classism; her use of symbolism, violence and humor; and the transformative power of grace in her fiction.

Participants can also expect to develop specific skills related to close reading, literary analysis, critical thinking and personal expression, which they will be able to apply to any future reading encounter, but the heart of the course will be our engaged weekly discussions.

An underlying assumption of this course is that deep, sustained engagement with texts can be a transformative experience for the reader. When we take the time to slow down and look closely at the elements of craft that go into creating a work of fiction, and to reflect on the deeper themes that are embedded in the work, we come away from this encounter changed. This course will provide the opportunity to undertake this kind of engagement with a community of supportive fellow readers, guided by an expert in the field.

Week 1 (July 11): “Greenleaf”

Week 2 (July 18): “The River”

Week 3 (July 25): “Everything that Rises Must Converge”

Week 4 (August 1): “Judgement Day”

The class will meet for one-hour sessions on Zoom July 11, 18, 25 and August 1). All readings will be provided in PDF form via the Thinkific platform.

Michael O’Connell is a writer, editor and educator who lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan. Since earning his Ph.D. in American literature from Loyola University Chicago, he has spent over a decade teaching literature and humanities courses at the university level, both online and in person. He is the author of “Startling Figures: Encounters with American Catholic Fiction” (Fordham University Press, 2023), editor of “Conversations with George Saunders” (University Press of Mississippi, 2022) and co-editor of The Journal of David Foster Wallace Studies. His essays have appeared in a wide array of peer-reviewed academic journals, as well as literary journals and websites. He is currently an editor at Busted Halo and the inaugural fellow at the Jesuit Media Lab.