Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical Discussion of Walker Percy

[tbassett AT acsu.buffalo.edu]

Hello all -

I'm writing to solicit advice, warnings, direction, etc. regarding my
decision to teach a course on Percy's novels and essays to law students
next semester.  Any feedback will be cheerfully (and not a little
desperately <g>) accepted.

I'm not sure why I decided to take this seminar on, in place of my usual
one on the death penalty.  Partly because I haven't had a chance to read
Percy carefully in the last few years.  I don't know how representative a
Percy reader I am (atheist, socially and politically way over on the left,
secular through and through . . . all in all a constellation of traits and
opinions and practices that Percy skewered well and truly more than once),
but I do know that dipping into his work every few years renews a long and
respectful conversation/quarrel/? I've had going with the man for a long
time.  I think my decision also partly traces to this deepening sense --
which is difficult to articulate, though nonetheless very real -- that law
students might benefit just as much as anyone from reading him.  The longer
I teach law, the more I think I see my students -- usually bright,
talented, hard-working, privileged -- feeling bad when they should be
feeling good. And, of course, Percy has one or two things to say about that.

I don't know much about how I might teach the class.  Something like ten
students . . . maybe three of the novels (Moviegoer, Love In the Ruins,
Thanatos????) . . . some of the essays (beyond starting the semester with
Notes for a Novel About the End of the World, I don't have a clue) . . .
I've been too busy with this semester to think beyond gross generalities).
Which is why virtually anything any of you have to say will be helpful.  

Thanks in advance.  I look forward to listening in on the list in the
future, too.

Regards,
Thom Bassett
SUNY-Buffalo Law School