I wasn't sure what to blog about today, and it seemed that nobody was entirely sure. So I decided to write about my experience with the Beauty and Belief symposium. I attended the Friday session at 12:30 in the MOA. My absolute favorite talk was by Joey Franklin, who I had as a teacher last semester for Creative Nonfiction. He wrote about the impact of personal essays, and how they connect us as people. He dissected the rise and fall of the personal essay and how it has to began with a confession to the reader, because to properly feel anything and understand what the writer learns we must connect to their personal experience. I found this interesting because this is actually how we connect with any literature. The most outlandish stories find their footing in the fact that even fantastic and unbelievable characters have human emotions and experiences-and that's where universality is born. This is present in all forms of literature, prose, poetry, plays, films, etc.
Anyway, this is what I learned from the symposium, which I found fascinating and uplifting. I also particularly enjoyed a talk that was about reconciling being an artist in the gospel where it's often hard to be creative. I know this struggle personally, so I found this perspective useful. It's important to remember that the gospel lives in beauty, and therefore we must always strive to find beauty in creativity. Great stuff.
Man, that's neat, I really like Joey Franklin! He has some great work... too bad I missed this panel :P I also like how you talk about creativity and reconciling that with religious beliefs, that something I've thought a lot about, too.
ReplyDeleteHe sounds like an amazing professor! You've pretty much convinced me to take the creative nonfiction class.
ReplyDeleteThat's really cool! I'm not into creative non-fiction, but I agree that we have to be able to relate to emotions or experiences in literature for it to be meaningful.
ReplyDeleteTension between creative imposes (especially when you want to reach a non-LDS audience) and gospel principles has been a major source of stress. I love that we are talking about it more openly!
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