About the Colosseum Institute
The Colosseum Institute is a nonprofit arts organization working in concert with the Franciscan University of Steubenville to publish new books in service of the art of poetry and the renewal of Catholic letters in our time. Our central program oversees the publication of Colosseum Books, an imprint of the Franciscan University of Steubenville Press and the publication of The Colosseum, a journal of arts and culture published in partnership with the MFA program in Creative Writing at the University of Saint Thomas, Houston.
Why the Colosseum?
In the ancient world, the civilizational achievements of Rome were transformed and leavened by the spirit of Christianity. The Colosseum stood as a symbol of the struggle and suffering such a new birth entailed, but also of final victory and union, as Christendom emerged to take possession of the treasures of Athens and Jerusalem with Rome as its spiritual capital. In the modern age, the English writer Christopher Dawson edited the review Colosseum as a forum for the Catholic intellectual world to engage contemporary arts and culture. In its pages such great minds as Dawson, Jacques Maritain, and E.I. Watkin studied and discussed the literary achievement of T.S. Eliot, Sigrid Undset, and other writers of the Catholic intellectual and literary revival and beyond.
In such a spirit of struggle and revival, transformation and synthesis, we propose to provide a home for programs that will nurture a new Catholic revival for a new century. Colosseum will publish important new books by contemporary poets worthy of the serious reader’s attention. The volumes will be at once works of humility and ambition, of craft and spirit, by authors attentive to the workmanlike responsibilities of the artist and to the classical understanding of the fine arts as occasions of epiphany and beauty. They will remind us of the true scope of the intellect, the great drama of human life, the discipline and dedication of serious work, and the great destiny of the human person.
Colosseum will foster the work of new and aspiring writers by hosting its annual Summer Institute, and by developing other seminars, workshops, and literary contests, all with the aim of encouraging people, young and old, to discover the joy, craft, and spiritual and intellectual depth of the art of poetry.
Why the Colosseum?
In the ancient world, the civilizational achievements of Rome were transformed and leavened by the spirit of Christianity. The Colosseum stood as a symbol of the struggle and suffering such a new birth entailed, but also of final victory and union, as Christendom emerged to take possession of the treasures of Athens and Jerusalem with Rome as its spiritual capital. In the modern age, the English writer Christopher Dawson edited the review Colosseum as a forum for the Catholic intellectual world to engage contemporary arts and culture. In its pages such great minds as Dawson, Jacques Maritain, and E.I. Watkin studied and discussed the literary achievement of T.S. Eliot, Sigrid Undset, and other writers of the Catholic intellectual and literary revival and beyond.
In such a spirit of struggle and revival, transformation and synthesis, we propose to provide a home for programs that will nurture a new Catholic revival for a new century. Colosseum will publish important new books by contemporary poets worthy of the serious reader’s attention. The volumes will be at once works of humility and ambition, of craft and spirit, by authors attentive to the workmanlike responsibilities of the artist and to the classical understanding of the fine arts as occasions of epiphany and beauty. They will remind us of the true scope of the intellect, the great drama of human life, the discipline and dedication of serious work, and the great destiny of the human person.
Colosseum will foster the work of new and aspiring writers by hosting its annual Summer Institute, and by developing other seminars, workshops, and literary contests, all with the aim of encouraging people, young and old, to discover the joy, craft, and spiritual and intellectual depth of the art of poetry.
James Matthew Wilson, Director
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James Matthew Wilson is the founder and director of the Colosseum Institute.
He is Cullen Foundation Chair in English Literature and the Founding Director of the Master of Fine Arts program in Creative Writing , at the University of Saint Thomas, Houston. An award-winning scholar of philosophical-theology and literature, he has authored dozens of essays, articles, and reviews on all manner of subjects secular and divine, and especially on those where we see the two in their intrinsic relation, as truth, goodness, beauty, and being disclose themselves in art and culture, in the political and intellectual life, in our quest for self knowledge and the contemplation of God. His scholarly work especially focuses on the meeting of aesthetic and ontological form, where the craftsmanship of art-work discloses the truth about being. Wilson is a poet and critic of contemporary poetry, whose work appears regularly in such magazines and journals as First Things, The Wall Street Journal, The Hudson Review, Modern Age, The New Criterion, Dappled Things, Measure, The Weekly Standard, Front Porch Republic, The Raintown Review, National Review, and The American Conservative. He has published twelve books, including six books and chapbooks of poetry. Among his volumes are: The Vision of the Soul: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty in the Western Tradition (CUA, 2017); the major critical study, The Fortunes of Poetry in an Age of Unmaking (Wiseblood, 2015); and a monograph, The Catholic Imagination in Modern American Poetry (both Wiseblood Books, 2014). His most recent books include The Strangeness of the Good (Angelico, 2020), the poetic sequence, The River of the Immaculate Conception (Wiseblood, 2019), and I Believe in One God: Praying the Nicene Creed (CTS, 2022). Wilson serves as the Poet-in-Residence for the Benedict XVI Institute for Sacred Music and Divine Liturgy, as Poetry Editor of Modern Age magazine, and series editor of Colosseum Books, of the Franciscan University at Steubenville Press. He also serves on the boards of several learned journals and societies. Twice, Wilson has been awarded the Lionel Basney Award by the Conference for Christianity and Literature; he has been a runner up for both the Foley Prize for Poetry by America magazine and the Jacques Maritain Essay Prize by Dappled Things magazine. The Dallas Institute of Humanities and Culture awarded him the 2017 Hiett Prize in the Humanities, the largest award of its kind. Wilson's The Strangeness of the Good won the Catholic Media Awards prize for poetry in 2021. The Vision of the Soul received the 2022 Parnassus Prize from Memoria Press. Wilson was educated at the University of Michigan (B.A.), the University of Massachusetts (M.A.), and the University of Notre Dame (M.F.A., Ph.D.), where he subsequently held a Sorin Research Fellowship. Wilson joined the University of Saint Thomas, Houston, in 2021, when he co-founded the Master of Fine Arts program. To learn more about James Matthew Wilson click here. |
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