percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org

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

List archive

[percy-l] Benedicts, Bourbon, and the Burden of History: Presenting the Presenters - Walker Percy Weekend

From: "Henry P. Mills" <wppdirector AT gmail.com>
To: "Percy-L:" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: [percy-l] Benedicts, Bourbon, and the Burden of History: Presenting the Presenters - Walker Percy Weekend
Date: Fri, 3 Mar 2017 19:08:39 -0500

Dear Percy-L:

Here is the latest from the Walker Percy Weekend listing the featured speakers. Find the full schedule at www.walkerpercyweekend.org.

Best regards,

Henry Mills

—

Percy-L Administrator

LOUISIANA'S MOST SPIRITED LITERARY FESTIVAL WELCOMES RENOWNED SCHOLARS FROM AROUND THE COUNTRY

June 2 - 4, 2017, St. Francisville, La

TICKETS SELLING FAST. GET YOURS HERE.

Celebrated speakers descend on St. Francisville when the fourth annual Walker Percy Weekend brings lectures, panel discussions and spirited social events to atmospheric locations around the historic district. Topics and panelists include:

Patrick Connelly is Associate Professor of History and the Chair of the History & Political Science Department at Mississippi College.

Walker Percy and the Burden of History

Walker Percy’s essays and novels acknowledge the enduring power of the ever-present past, but, as Patrick Connelly will show, the burden of history does not lead him to fatalism or despair. Drawing on personal biography, the saga of Southern history, the American narrative, and world-historical themes rooted in religious and philosophical convictions, Percy presents the burden of history in terms of the responsibilities we share as creatures of hope and history.

Jessica Hooten Wilson is Associate Director of the Honors College program at John Brown University

The Devil Went Down to Georgia: Flannery O'Connor and the Religion of Me, Myself, and I.

The modern age is one of self-worship, putting us in thrall to a false idol and a pseudo-religious vision that leaves us blind to the human condition, says Jessica Hooten Wilson. In her fiction, Flannery O'Connor, the self-described "Hillbilly Thomist," fought hard for the Real and the True. Wilson will explore O'Connor's anti-modern iconoclasm, and the lessons O'Connor has to teach readers struggling to make sense of contemporary problems.

Ralph C. Wood is University Professor of Theology and Literature at Baylor University

Walker Percy and the Benedict Option: Confronting the Culture of Death

In his prophetic mode, Percy said we are living through the birth of a post-Christian order that worships technology and the will to power, which devalues life's sacredness. Drawing on the author's scorching estimate of contemporary American life, Dr. Ralph Wood will explore why we need new countercultural movements to defend and preserve what is uniquely human.

Dr. Ralph Beaumont is an adult psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, living in Portland, Oregon

Walker Percy's Blues: Suffering And Self-Discovery In Love in the Ruins.

Percy's fiction and personal life are filled with experiences of melancholy and a concern with the sense of Self, and the Self's relations with others. Psychoanalyst Ralph Beaumont will explore the philosophical, psychological, and spiritual paradoxes related to this theme as manifest in Percy's Love in the Ruins.

Harrison Scott Key is the author of the book The World's Largest man , a contributing editor for the Oxford American and a professor of writing at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia

Memoirs of a Mississippi Boy

Writer and humorist Harrison Scott Key, author of The World's Largest Man, on the eccentric charms of growing up in the rural South. Key is a contributing editor for the Oxford American, and a professor of writing at the Savannah College of Art and Design in Savannah, Georgia. His humor and non-fiction have been featured in The Best American Travel Writing and numerous magazines.

All this, plus receptions, crawfish, craft beer, and the famous
Progressive Front Porch Tour & Bourbon Tasting

Full schedule at www.walkerpercyweekend.org

Walker Percy (1916—1990) wrote novels that explored the “dislocation of man in the modern age.” Most of his work was set in New Orleans and around South Louisiana, including the semi-fictitious Feliciana, which the author based upon West Feliciana and the other Florida parishes. Percy’s debut novel, THE MOVIEGOER, won the National Book Award for Fiction, and was included on Time magazine’s list of the 100 Best English language novels from 1923—2005. In later works, including LOVE IN THE RUINS, THE LAST GENTLEMAN, and THE THANATOS SYNDROME, Percy continued exploring the search for meaning in an increasingly materialistic society via masterfully wrought tales delivered with a poetic Southern sensibility and informed by the author’s deep Catholic faith.

Festival proceeds support the JULIUS FREYHAN FOUNDATION—an organization dedicated to restoring the historic Freyhan School building to serve as a community and cultural center for West Feliciana Parish.

WE LOVE OUR SPONSORS!

For more information on St. Francisville-area events, attractions, and dining please visit www.stfrancisville.us

[percy-l] Benedicts, Bourbon, and the Burden of History: Presenting the Presenters - Walker Percy Weekend, Henry P. Mills, 03/03/2017