This seminar traces a century of novels in America written by Catholics. First and foremost, the novelists are well-recognized in the literary community: Willa Cather, Flannery O'Connor, Walker Percy, Mary Gordon, Ron Hansen, and Alice McDermott. The seminar will explore how literature and religion converge in their novels, how (or if) Catholic novelists embody a distinctive imagination, and whether the advent of Vatican II has produced a new kind of Catholic novel.