The following is an information sheet and assignment for a graduate-level English seminar involving a comparative study of the works of Walker Percy, Flannery O'Connor, and John Updike held at LSU in the Spring of 1997 (John R. May). The students' annotative work as described in part 3 is forthcoming in the Percy Project. It represents one way formal educational activities may be involved in the Percy Project.
A comprehensive and up-to-date literary resource on philosophical novelist Walker Percy is available through the Internet at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, archive of the "Walker Percy Papers." The Walker Percy Project is accessible via the WorldWideWeb at the above address and includes introductory as well as special topic treatments of the writer and his thought, comprehensive bibliographic resources, and photographs and other multimedia features. Related information on forthcoming books, conference sessions, calls-for-papers, the Percy-L mailing list, The Walker Percy Symposiums, The Walker Percy Society, and the location of special collections is also included. Access to the resource is unlimited, and the site offers links to other prominent Internet resources dedicated to literary study.
--Public-access Internet terminals are available in the Middleton Library Reference section.
--For information on getting personal dial-up Internet access, contact the LSU ITS Helpdesk at 33HDESK (4-3375).
ANNOUNCING PERCY-L
Percy-L is an electronic mailing list dedicated to the work and thought of the late American novelist and philosopher Walker Percy.
WHAT IS A MAILING LIST?
Mailing lists allow e-mail users to post questions and responses to an "on-line" discussion group with all postings automatically being distributed to
all members of the list. Some lists have as many as several hundred members.
Such a medium allows the possibility for scholars around the world to be in regular community with one another about issues significant to their scholarship and studies.
HOW TO JOIN PERCY-L
Send an e-mail to LISTSERV@LISTSERV.LSU.EDU with the following line in the body:
--For information on getting an e-mail account and personal dial-up Internet access, contact the LSU ITS Helpdesk at 33HDESK (4-3375).
As a part of this seminar's requirements, we are going to gain some first-hand critical studies exposure by doing a brief analysis and written overview of the major scholastic works on Percy. Not only will this give you an opportunity to look closely at key topics in Percy criticism, but it will also give you a chance to reflect upon the current structure of formal literary activity insofar as it has been manifest in book-length works. Perhaps the most exciting aspect of this assignment is that your review/annotation will have the chance to be featured as a lasting part of The Percy Project, where it will, by special arrangement, be added on-line to the project's bibliographic resources.
To complete this assignment, choose one of the books listed below to read and analyze, and then write a short review/overview (500-word maximum) of it addressing the following questions/topics:
The books to choose from are as follows, all of which are available through Middleton Library:
SURVEY STUDIES
2) In Search of Self, Life, Death, and Walker Percy. Taylor, L. Jerome,1986
3) Autobiography in Walker Percy: Repetition, Recovery, and Redemption. Dupuy, Edward J.,1996
4) The Fiction of Walker Percy. Hardy, John Edward, 1987
5) Prophecy in American Fiction: A Study of the Novels of Walker Percy. Madathiparampil, George, 1980
6) Walker Percy, A Southern Wayfarer. Allen, William Rodney, 1986
7) Walker Percy: Books of Revelations. Ciuba, Gary M., 1991
8) The Gift of the Other: Gabriel Marcel's Concept of Intersubjectivity in Walker Percy's Novels. Howland, Mary Deems, 1990
9) Walker Percy and the Old Modern Age: Reflections on Language, Argument, and the Telling of Stories. Poteat, Patricia Lewis, 1984.
10) Walker Percy. Tharpe, Jac., 1983
COMPARATIVE WORKS
12) Plight in Common: Hawthorne and Percy. Oleksy, Elzbieta, 1993
13) Three Catholic Writers of the Modern South: Allen Tate, Carolyn Gordon, Walker Percy. Brinkmeyer, Robert H., 1985
14) The Comedy of Redemption : Christian Faith and Comic Vision in Four American Novelists (O'Connor, Updike, Percy, DeVries). Wood, Ralph C.,1988
15) The Writer as Shaman: The Pilgrimages of Conrad Aiken and Walker Percy. Spivey, Ted Ray, 1986
ALTERNATE
Walker Percy, An American Search. Coles, Robert, 1978