The Flannery O’Connor Society is the “Great Books” seminar here at Carondelet. The society—in the spirit of its namesake—was founded to provide frosh who display unique proficiency in the study of literature (and related disciplines- history, philosophy, the arts, and so on) with a venue where they can be exposed to and challenged by excellent texts.

The society is a “Great Books” seminar and therefore seeks to emulate and participate in the rich tradition of the “Great Books.” In such a seminar, primary emphasis is placed on the community of shared inquiry. Students work together, along with their moderator, in the hopes of ‘getting after” the deeper issues that reside in any given text. By asking creative and critically insightful questions, students begin to draw meaningful connections between one text and many other “texts” (i.e. other academic disciplines, cultures, films, other art-forms, family/personal life, etc) and foster a profound appreciation for one of the cornerstones of the Catholic intellectual tradition: the vitality of a liberal arts education.