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

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  • From: "Beck, David A" <dabeck AT iupui.edu>
  • To: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [percy-l] Hello!
  • Date: Mon, 4 Jul 2011 15:46:30 -0400

Troy,

In addition to Nikki's recommendations, I suggest In Search of Self:
Life, Death, and Walker Percy by Jerome Taylor. It's probably
out-of-print, but you should be able to find used copies or a copy at a
library. Taylor focuses on the Percy/SK connection. It was helpful to
me when I was doing my grad work.

Have fun! It's a worthy pursuit.

-David


Quoting Garic Barranger <nikkibar AT aol.com>:

Dear Troy,

Please feel free to lurk as much as you'd like.

Although Walker was a good friend of mine, I've never gotten into his
closeness to SK per se. Talking to him about SK would tend to make
him somewhat depressed so we stayed away from those dark parts of the
woods in our conversations. Likewise Heidegger.

You might like to have a look at his other closeness to Charles
Sanders Peirce by looking into Ken Ketner's exchange of letters with
Walker called A Thief of Peirce. If that piques your interest, check
out Ketner's other book His Glassy Essence. Ketner is the world's
preeminent authority on Peirce and teaches at the University of
Lubbock. Ken is/was as close to Walker in the philosophy mode as you
can come; so if you are interested in that side of Walker as a
pathway into SK, you couldn't do better than to contact him. His
e-dress is above.

Nikki Barranger
nikkibar AT aol.com
On Jul 4, 2011, at 12:27 PM, Troy Smith wrote:

Hi,

This is Troy Smith of Baltimore, MD. I am a Master's of Library
Science student at Clarion University of Pennsylvania, and in the
past year I have become enthralled by the works of Søren
Kierkegaard. It was through him that I recently rediscovered Walker
Percy. (I have only read The Moviegoer, a book which, after reading
Kierkegaard, seems all the more vital to me in hindsight.) Ever
since I graduated from Swarthmore College in 2005, I have kicked
around the idea of going to graduate school for a degree in English
literature, but always balked because I could not commit to writing
a thesis or (maybe even) a dissertation on one particular author or
book. It was the classic existential paradox of being "condemned to
be free." Anyway, that changed for me when, after reading many other
authors, I finally read Kierkegaard and decided that I would commit
myself to studying him. I do not, however, have even a bachelor's in
philosophy, so it would probably take quite a lot of additional
coursework in order to study S.K. at the graduate level. What I do
have is a bachelor's in English literature and a serious passion for
the discipline, so, when I learned of the several Southern authors
influenced by S.K. (Percy, Faulkner, O'Connor), I decided that I
would write a thesis on one, some, or all of them and their
connections to Kierkegaard. So that's my long-winded explanation for
why I'll be observing. This spring I'll be applying for library jobs
and M.A. programs at universities with strong programs in Southern
literature and professors who write about Percy, Faulkner, and
O'Connor, especially vis-à-vis S.K. In the meantime, I'll be reading
Percy and lurking around here. I hope you won't mind!

Best wishes,
Troy Smith
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