Walker Percy Conferences

Conference reports welcomed!

Know of a conference or symposium not listed below? Please send any new information to wpercy1@ibiblio.org.

Last updated: 1/97


1997 Walker Percy Symposium (Covington, LA)
Presentations by Jay Tolson, John F. Desmond, and Patrick Samway, S.J.
[To be held in late March]

1996 ALA, May, San Diego
American Literature Association

  1. "The Death of Walker Percy's Father: From Fact to Fiction," Patrick Samway, S. J., Literary Editor, America
  2. "Percy's LANCELOT, Kierkegaard, and the Knight of Faith," Stephen P. Miss, University of Georgia
  3. "THE MAGIC MOUNTAIN, Thanaturgy, and THE THANATOS SYNDROME," Barnard Turner, National University of Singapore
1996 SSSL, April, Richmond, VA
The Society for the Study of Southern Literature
Chair: John F. Desmond
  1. "The Tug of Sante Fe: Percy's City of Holy Faith" Patrick Samway, S. J. , Literary Editor, AMERICA
  2. "Peirce and Percy: Triads and Deltas," Ann Mace Futrell, Louisiana Tech University
  3. "Will Barrett and the Myth of Marsyas," Lewis A. Lawson, University of Maryland
1996 Walker Percy Symposium (Covington, LA)
Presentations by Edward Dupuy, Kenneth L. Ketner, Gene Beyt, David C. Duty

1995 MLA, Chicago, IL, Thursday, 28 December
Modern Language Association
Walker Percy: Signifying Race
A special session; Gary M. Ciuba, Kent State Univ., Trumbull Campus, chair
Conference report by Gary Ciuba

  1. "Will and Walker Percy: Contrasting Family Views on Race," Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Univ. of Florida; Anne Wyatt-Brown, Univ. of Florida
  2. "Walker Percy and the Collapse of Racial Difference," Doreen Fowler, Univ. of Mississippi
  3. "White Man's Burden: The Dialogics of Race and Class in The Last Gentleman," Michael Kobre, Queens Coll., NC
  4. "Albert Murray, Walker Percy, and the Intersection of Symbol and Race in Lancelot," Roberta Maguire, Univ. of Maryland, College Park
1995 SAMLA, November
South Atlantic Modern Languages Association
A special session on Walker Percy and Language
Atlanta, November 3-5, 1995.
Chaired by Lewis Lawson, included papers by the following:
  1. Roberta Maguire (WP and J. Maritain), University of Maryland
  2. Kathleen Scullen (WP and Feminist theory of discource), Mt. Mary College, Milwaukee
  3. John F. Desmond (WP, C.S. Peirce, and Community), Whitman College

1995 WALKER PERCY CONFERENCE, October, 1995
Biological Sciences Learning Center, University of Chicago
Chicago, IL, October 20-22, 1995
Presentations by Jay Tolson, John Stone, Carl Elliot, Martha Montello, Richard Selzer, David Schiedermayer, Kathryn Montgomery Hunter, Ross McElwee Conference report by Gregory Beabout

1995 ALA, Baltimore, MD, Saturday, 27 May
(American Literature Association)
Chair: John F. Desmond, Whitman College, and the Walker Percy Society

  1. "The Silent Treatment: Percy, Gnosticism, and the Holocaust," Edward J. Dupuy, St. Joseph Seminary College
  2. "Percy's Wintery Kingdom of the Self," John Sykes, Wingate College
  3. "When the Campbell's Soup and Early Times Run Out: A Rejection of the Garden in Percy's Love in the Ruins," Alan T. Belsches, Troy State University, Dothan
1995 Walker Percy Symposium (Covington, LA)
Presentations by Edward Dupuy, Judge Brady Fitzsimmons, Wayne Phillips, Suzanne Parsons, Henry P. Mills, Patrick Samway.

1994 Walker Percy Symposium (Covington, LA)
Presentations by William Dowie, Frederick Stephen Ellis, Huey Guagliardo, Gavin Mahlie, Verne T. Clark

1993 Walker Percy Symposium (Covington, LA)
Presentations by William Dowie, Lynn Roundtree, Shelia Bosworth, Bill Ross, Frank Levy, Jay Tolson

1992 Walker Percy Symposium (Covington, LA)
Presentations by Lynn Roundtree, Walter C. West, Shelia Stroup, William Dowie

1991 MLA, San Francisco, CA, Sunday, 29 December
A special session; John F. Desmond, Whitman College, chair

Walker Percy and the Confluence of Art and Science

  1. "Walker Percy's Challenge to Science," Patrick Samway, America
  2. "Walker Percy and George Herbert Mead," Lewis A. Lawson, Univ. of Maryland, College Park
  3. "Percy's Art as Device: A Novelist's Dialogue with Russian Formalism," Gary Ciuba, Kent State Univ., Trumbull
  4. "The Origins of Consciousness: Losses and Gains- Walker Percy versus Julian Jaynes," Laura Mooneyham, Trinity Univ.

1991 Symposium (Jackson, MS)
Sponsored by Bookfrieds of University Press of Mississippi and MS Humanities Council at State Historical Museum; April 20, event coincided with the release of Walker Percy: Novelist and Philosopher. Jan Norby Gretlund, William Rodney Allen, Marion Montgomery, Lewis Lawson, Linda Whitney Hobson, and Ellen Douglas gave tributes (Source: The Southern Register, Summer, 1991, p. 14).

1989 International Symposium (Denmark)
Held at the University of Aarhus in Denmark. Compiled as Walker Percy: Novelist and Philosopher, edited by Jan Norby Gretlund and Karl-Heinz Westarp (University Press of Mississippi, 1991).

1988 MLA, New Orleans, LA, Wednesday, 28 December
Walker Percy's New Orleans as City of God and City of Man
A special session, Patrick Samway, SJ, chair

  1. "Down and Out in New Orleans: Walker Percy's Catholic Carnival," Robert H. Brinkmeyer, Jr., Univ. of Mississippi
  2. "The City at the End of the World: New Orleans and the New Jerusalem in The Moviegoer," Gary Ciuba, Kent State Univ., Trumbull
  3. "New Orleans: Locus of the Horizontal Search in Percy's Fiction," Linda Whitney Hobson, Newman School, New Orleans, LA


Return to homepage