Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness

For our next class meeting, please complete the following:

1. Please read the chapter titled "Torrents of Emotion" from Lynn Hunt's Inventing Human Rights.
2. Please read pages 113-166 of the selection from Dorothy Day's The Long Loneliness that I’ve put up on Blackboard. (It's in the folder labelled "PDF files.")
3. Please write a brief essay (say, between 250 and 500 words) in which you explain how Day's narrative dramatizes at least ONE of what, in class, we were calling "the paradoxes of human rights." You’ll recall that we discussed how, in order to promote justice, human rights must paradoxically be both natural and social, both universal and particular, both equal and respectful of difference, both individually held and collectively held. As you’ll see, Day struggles with these paradoxes in her own thinking and in her own life; indeed, these struggles make up the themes of her story. So pick out what strikes you as an especially interesting moment in that story and interpret it as you would a piece of literary fiction, say, or a poem or play, by asking: What does this specific moment in the story have to say about one of the book’s larger themes?

Please email your responses to me and to Catherine by the start of class on Tuesday.

Also, please note that I added an “extra” chapter to the PDF. The portion of The Long Loneliness that I’m asking you to read is the climax, so to speak, of Day’s spiritual autobiography; it recounts the religious conversion that she underwent before she undertook the work for which she became well known. But since I thought that some of you will want to read about this better-known work, I included the chapter that describes the founding of the Catholic Worker Movement. You’re not required to read this last chapter (titled “Peasant of the Pavements”), but it’s there if you’re interested.

Speaking of which, here’s a bit of background on Dorothy Day and the Catholic Worker Movement:

The Long Loneliness is the spiritual autobiography of Dorothy Day, a convert to Catholicism who, along with a fellow named Peter Maurin, founded what became known as the Catholic Worker Movement. The group started out in 1933 by publishing a newspaper (called The Catholic Worker, still in publication today) whose mission was/is to speak out against poverty, war, and injustice of all sorts. They then opened what they called a "house of hospitality" on NY's Lower East Side, where the poor could find food, friendship, and a respite from the world outside. Catholic Worker houses soon began to spring up all around the country and eventually around the world. (Even today, you can find a Catholic Worker house in Denver (it's at 24th and Welton), and members of the local Catholic Worker community serve meals at the Saint Francis Center.) 

Catholic Worker communities are not an official part of the Catholic church; they're independent of the church and, indeed, largely independent of one another; they're made up of individuals who've decided to make common cause with the poor, and to do so outside of any official institutional structure. 

Day herself is a fascinating person. Prior to her conversion, she was a member of the bohemian crowd in Greenwich Village, where she hung out with lots of famous and soon-to-be-famous poets, playwrights, painters, and the like. She was also deeply involved in the radical politics of her time, especially that of the Communists. In fact, she made her living as a journalist writing for various leftwing publications.  

At the age of about 30, however, Day underwent a profound religious experience, converting to Catholicism and leaving behind the political ideologies of her youth as well as many of her Greenwich Village friends. Soon, she started the first Catholic Worker community, channeling her activist energies into work on behalf of the poor and her literary energies into The Catholic Worker newspaper. Although, in her day, she was frequently in conflict with the powers-that-be in the Catholic Church, she has recently been named a candidate for sainthood. 

If you’re interested, you’ll find an old television interview with Dorothy Day here. Not only is the interview quite interesting in own right, but, because it was filmed in the early 1970s, it features some truly awesome clothes, hair, and visual effects.