Lee Oser

Lee Oser (born in 1958) is a Christian humanist, novelist, and literary critic. He is a former president of the Association of Literary Scholars, Critics, and Writers. He teaches Religion and Literature at the College of the Holy Cross, in Worcester, Massachusetts.

Lee Oser
Oser giving the Trivium School commencement speech in 2021
Oser giving the Trivium School commencement speech in 2021
Born1958 (age 64–65)
New York City, U.S.
Occupation
  • Novelist
  • educator
  • literary critic
LanguageEnglish
Education

Biography

Oser was educated at Reed College and Yale University, where he received his PhD in English in 1995.[1] He is Roman Catholic.

Novels

Out of What Chaos

Set on the West Coast during Bush II's first term, Out of What Chaos (Scarith], 2007) showcases the escapades of Rex and The Brains as they break into the Portland rock scene, record their first CD, and tour from Vancouver to LA behind their chart-topping single, “F U. I Just Want To Get My Rocks Off.” In the end, the boys must make a decision about how to live. Literary critic and theorist, Dr. Jean-Michel Rabaté calls Oser a "worthy debater" and praises Out of What Chaos, saying he "enjoyed it fully."[2]

The Oracles Fell Silent

Oser's second novel follows its predecessor by exploring the intersection of pop culture and religion. The young narrator, Richard Bellman, recounts his experience as personal secretary to a sixties' rock legend, Sir Ted Pop.

Reviews of The Oracles

Early reviews have praised the novel, while focusing on Oser's attempt to address contemporary culture from a Catholic point of view.[3][4][5][6][7][8]

Oregon Confetti

Pushing forty, Portland art dealer Devin Adams has been so successful conning the local Philistines that he can no longer tell actual art from the highly profitable junk that supports his living. But the sudden appearance on his doorstep of the great painter John Sun, bearing a strange child, changes all that, confronting Devin with the hard facts of his life, from his lusts and obsessions to his own small part in a mass psychosis that denies the existence of love.

Reviews of Oregon Confetti

Critic Anthony Domestico lists the novel among Commonweal Magazine's Top Books of 2017, saying "Antic, absurdist, comic, and Catholic, this ribald novel grows out of the Evelyn Waugh and John Kennedy Toole tradition."[9] In other reviews of Oregon Confetti, Oser's Catholic vantage point remained a source of contention.[10][11][12] Critic Joseph Pearce listed Oregon Confetti in his list of "The Best of Contemporary Christian Fiction."[13]

Interviews for Oregon Confetti

Oser has been interviewed in the following: Crisis Magazine,[14] Dappled Things,[15] Law and Liberty.[16]

Christian humanism

Oser's defense of Christian humanism is set out in his book The Return of Christian Humanism. In a lengthy review-essay, Sir Anthony Kenny argued that Oser's position had been superannuated by modernity.[17] Alan Blackstock places Oser in the tradition of G. K. Chesterton and compares Oser's ethical criticism to that of Alasdair MacIntyre.[18] Oser subsequently developed his position in a 2021 essay, "Christian Humanism and the Radical Middle."[19]

Bibliography
  • T. S. Eliot and American Poetry University of Missouri Press, 1998 ISBN 978-0826211811
  • The Ethics of Modernism: Moral Ideas in Yeats, Eliot, Joyce, Woolf and Beckett Cambridge University Press, 2007 ISBN 9780521116282
  • Out of What Chaos: A Novel Scarith, 2007 ISBN 0978771346
  • The Return of Christian Humanism: Chesterton, Tolkien, Eliot and the Romance of History University of Missouri Press, 2007 ISBN 978-0826217752
  • The Oracles Fell Silent Wiseblood Books, 2014 ISBN 9780615876139
  • Oregon Confetti Wiseblood Books, 2017 ISBN 9780991583294
  • Christian Humanism in Shakespeare: A Study in Religion and Literature Catholic University of America Press, 2022 ISBN 9780813235103
  • Old Enemies: A Satire Senex Press, 2022 ISBN 9798986315904
  • Ed., Shakespeare's Reformation: Christian Humanism and the Death of God, by Nalin Ranasinghe St. Augustine's Press, 2022 ISBN 9781587318177

References
  1. "Holy Cross 2013–2014 Catalog" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-11-01. Retrieved 2014-02-20.
  2. "Hypermedia Joyce Studies, VOLUME 9, NUMBER 1, 2008 ISSN 1801-1020". Hjs.ff.cuni.cz. Retrieved 2014-02-05.
  3. "Holy Cross professor brings Catholic perspective to second novel". telegram.com. Archived from the original on 2015-09-24. Retrieved 2014-02-20.
  4. "Briefly Noted," First Things 245 (August/September 2014): 65-66.
  5. The Chesterton Review 40.1 and 2 (Spring/Summer 2014): 143-145.
  6. "Following the Bellman:: A Review of The Oracles Fell Silent". Dappledthings.org. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
  7. "The Oracles Fell Silent".
  8. "Review of the Oracles Fell Silent".
  9. "Top Books of 2017 | Commonweal Magazine".
  10. "The Catholic Novel in an Age of Political Correctness". 26 November 2017.
  11. "Love Among the Junk". 4 March 2018.
  12. https://cornellbookreview.com/2017/12/01/oregon-confetti-by-lee-oser/
  13. "The Best of Contemporary Christian Fiction". 6 October 2018.
  14. "Comedy and the Catholic Novel: A Visit with Lee Oser". 31 January 2018.
  15. "Damned Beautiful Things: A Conversation". dappledthings.org. Archived from the original on 2018-02-21.
  16. "Lee Oser's Oregon Confetti and the Redemption of Portlandia". 8 December 2017.
  17. "Table of Contents — January 2009, 59 (1)". Eic.oxfordjournals.org. 2009-01-01. Archived from the original on 2014-02-05. Retrieved 2014-02-18.
  18. Alan R. Blackstock, The Rhetoric of Redemption: Chesterton, Ethical Criticism, and the Common Man (Peter Lang, 2012), 114-21. ISBN 1433119803
  19. "Christian Humanism and the Radical Middle – Lee Oser". Law & Liberty. 2021-11-05. Retrieved 2021-11-09.
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