The Garaventa Center hosts University of Notre Dame theology professor Sr. Ann Astell as she presents “My Life is a Work of Art: Oscar Wilde’s Novelistic & Religious Conversions” on Wednesday, November 9, at 7:15 p.m., in Franz Hall Room 120. The talk is free and open to all.
The talk will focus on the deathbed conversion of Wilde, the decadent Irish poet, essayist, playwright, and novelist. Oscar Wilde contemplated joining the Catholic Church during his student years at Oxford University, but he became Catholic only on his deathbed. What preceded his religious conversion qualified it in important ways, which helps to explain its long postponement.
Sr. Astell was professor of English at Purdue University before joining the theology faculty at the University of Notre Dame in 2007. The winner of a John Simon Guggenheim Memorial fellowship, she is the author of six books and the editor or co-editor of six volumes. She is past president of the Colloquium on Violence and Religion, and serves on the editorial board for Christianity and Literature and Renascence. She is a member of the Schoenstatt Sisters of Mary.
For ADA accommodations or further information, please contact the Garaventa Center at x7702 or garaventa@up.edu.