Description: Essays in Unruly Catholics explore how renowned Catholic literary figures Dante Alighieri, Oscar Wilde, Graham Greene, Evelyn Waugh, and Gerard Manley Hopkins dealt with the disparities between their personal beliefs and the Church's official teachings. Contributors also sugge...
Brief description: Marc DiPaolo is an Assistant Professor of Humanities at Moraine Valley Community College, USA, and Secretary for the Society for the Study of the Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States. He has written the autobiographical novel Fake Italian for Bordighera Press (2021), and the monographs Fire and Snow: Climate Fiction from the Inklings to Game of Thrones (2018) and War, Politics, and Superheroes (CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2011). He has edited three additional American Studies books, including Unruly Catholics from Dante to Madonna (2007), as well as director studies on Ozu and Mike Leigh. He has been interviewed on NPR, BBC4, and in the AMC docuseries Robert Kirkman's Secret History of Comics (s1e4, 2017).
Review Quotes:
"This lively and timely collection revisits in contemporary contexts the long-standing debate around the catholicity of Catholic traditions." --Ruth Vanita, author of Sappho and the Virgin Mary
"This is a book that broadens narrow religious horizons steeped in the twilight of the culture wars, developing fresh appreciations for faith in its various manifestations in literature, film, politics, and everyday life." --Joerg Rieger, Vanderbilt University "Frustrating traditional divisions between scholarly disciplines, high and low culture, spiritual and sensual, academic and subjective, DiPaolo's writing is personal in voice and form. To read DiPaolo is to engage with a sharp mind and a quick wit, to be startled and to see differently." --Katherine Brown Downey, author of Perverse Midrash "DiPaolo has brought together unlikely contributors and ideas to foster dialogue and invites the reader to join in the fun is vividly displayed in his confessional preface. The book raises the possibilities for Catholic faith and thought suggested by Catholic fiction." --Rsr