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

["Beck, David A" <dabeck AT iupui.edu>]

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
> > --
> > An archive of all list discussion is available at
> > https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/percy-l/
> >
> > Visit The Walker Percy Project at http://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
> >
> > Contact the moderator: percy-l-owner at lists.ibiblio.org (note: add
> > @ sign when addressing email)