Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile: Literature and transcendence

At a time when the encounter between people becomes increasingly scarce, and the conversation between the different disciplines is not always easy, it is necessary to turn our gaze towards interdisciplinary dialogue, and open the way to different types of knowledge. As stated by the rector Ignacio Sánchez in a letter in La Segunda, “In our identity and university mission of the joy of seeking the truth, of discovering it and of communicating it in all fields of knowledge, -carrying out interdisciplinary dialogue-, is where literature fulfills a role of cultural expression and theology that of a true reflective horizon ”.

“The VIII International Congress of the Latin American Association of Literature and Theology (ALALITE ) was held, whose theme was” Salvation and their faces. “This association arose in 2006 from the concern of Argentine, Brazilian and Chilean academics, who, motivated by the spirit of the Second Vatican Council , -by the Church’s invitation to dialogue with contemporary society-, and due to the greater participation of the laity in the evangelization of culture, saw it necessary to be closely linked to enhance research tasks Something very current and necessary today.

At a time when the encounter between people becomes increasingly scarce, when the conversation of the different disciplines is not always easy, ALALITE has sought interdisciplinary dialogue, also accepting the exhortation that Pope John Paul II made to the Catholic universities in the Constitution Ex Corde Ecclesiae, and that more recently Pope Francis indicated to us during his visit to our University, when he told us that “The« divorce »of knowledge and languages, illiteracy on how to integrate the different dimensions of life, the only thing it achieves is fragmentation and social breakdown. ” It is then necessary to continue searching and opening paths for this dialogue of knowledge.

“Thus, we seek to think about reality in a key of transcendence, and hence the importance of literature as a hypothesis of reality where culture is expressed verbally, -the desires, imagination, the pains of its inhabitants- and where Theology is it rises as a reflective horizon open to transcendence, with the collaboration of Philosophy, the Arts and other related disciplines “- rector Ignacio Sánchez.

Thus, it seeks to think about reality in the key of transcendence, and hence the importance of literature as a hypothesis of reality where culture is expressed verbally, -the desires, imagination, the pains of its inhabitants- and where Theology stands. as a reflective horizon open to transcendence, with the collaboration of Philosophy, the Arts and other related disciplines. In our identity and university mission of the joy of seeking the truth, of discovering it and of communicating it in all fields of knowledge, -carrying out interdisciplinary dialogue-, it is where literature fulfills a role of cultural expression and theology that of a true reflective horizon.

These meetings were held to commemorate the seven hundred years since the conclusion of the Divine Comedy and the death of Dante Alighieri, and the two hundred years since the birth of the writer Fyodor Dostoevsky and the poet Charles Baudelaire , works and authors that have shaped the underlying problem, how is salvation. Literature opens doors to the transcendence of the person “.