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

[Justin Bonanno <bonannju AT gmail.com>]

Rhonda, I'm honored for the invitation to attend SAMLA. This year won't work, as I have a conference in Maryland around that same time period (11/15 thru 11/19). However, I'm certainly open to attending SAMLA in future years. In the very least, I'd love to get the chance to meet everyone still taking an active interest in Percy's work in person!
--
Thank you for your kind words, Chuck. You ask good questions. I think you can appreciate Percy as a philosopher or as a novelist. Both of these categories, I think, Percy would consider reifications, a way of trying to size him up and place him in the world. All our reifications ultimately fail to capture the existential reality of the person. And yet, we reify, anyway. Personally, I prefer to categorize Percy neither as a philosopher nor as a novelist (both profitable enterprises, to be sure) but as a rhetorician. :)

-jnb

On Tue, Aug 22, 2023 at 12:05 PM <percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:

Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to
        percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
        https://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
        percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org

You can reach the person managing the list at
        percy-l-owner AT lists.ibiblio.org

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..."


Today's Topics:

   1. Re: Percy-L Digest, Vol 185, Issue 2 (Charles Lowry)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 2023 13:58:09 -0400
From: Charles Lowry <lowry.charles AT gmail.com>
To: "Percy-L: Literary, Religious, Scientific, and Philosophical
        Discussion" <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
Subject: Re: [percy-l] Percy-L Digest, Vol 185, Issue 2
Message-ID:
        <CADDsyCOKGaTFWh+BEFBbyCheG_M7H92zDCdWzLqsKXqQ5zBkgg AT mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"

Dear Henry, dear Justin, dear Rhonda and Percyesque folks,

I am always delighted to see new work on Percy, and I congratulate you,
Justin, on what is surely, from the information available, a very useful
contribution.  Nor am I surprised to see an acknowledgment of Rhonda?s
contribution: our list would be a poorer place without her.

I have always found Percy?s philosophical works (or such ones as I have
tried) to be pretty stiff going.  On the other hand, I have never found
novels that involve me more, move me more, cause me to reflect more, than
Percy?s.  I therefore ask, simply, ?What is the link??

I am a sincere Percy reader but no Percy scholar.  I shall be grateful if
astute list members can point me to work that examines this link.  I?m sure
there are studies that can get me thinking about the question of whether
Percy was one author or two authors; I just do not know where to look.

There is, though, a more fundamental question: does it matter?  Can Percy
the philosopher exist without Percy the novelist?  Can Percy the novelist
exist without Percy the philosopher?  Camus, in *The Myth of Sisyphus*,
says that a person's mind can be trained to follow one of two paths through
life, either the path of evidence or the path of lyricism.  Is it as simple
as that?  Does Percy the philosopher follow the path of evidence and Percy
the novelist the path of lyricism?  Is someone who cherishes the novels
shorting himself by not mastering and appreciating the philosophical
works?  In a similar vein, does someone who has mastered the philosophical
works of Percy short himself if, having read the novels of Percy, he is not
moved by them, does not reflect on them?  In an interview, the
perspicacious scholar Jessica Hooten Wilson talked about the literary canon
and specifically that the canon is only valuable because of the way we live
the lessons of the content of the canon, the wisdom of the canon.  The
novels of Percy demand a response; do the philosophical works of Percy
demand a response?  In short, what do students of Percy the novelist and
Percy the philosopher have to say to one another?

One can confidently pose such a question because of the breadth of learning
and generosity of list members.

Finally, in much the same way that Cato the Elder ended every speech in the
Senate by noting that, in addition to anything else, Carthage must be
destroyed, I seem to end every note to this list by offering thanks and
praise to Henry for his expert and wide-ranging management of this list:
bravo, Henry.

Chuck Lowry
Brooklyn, New York


Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 21, 2023, at 11:32 AM, RHONDA MCDONNELL <rhonda_mcdonnell AT msn.com>
wrote:

? Kudos to you, Justin!! I?m so excited to read your work. I don?t usually
pay library prices but for a Percy book it will be worth it! I hope some
others on the list can find a way to access it as well.

It would be fabulous if you could join us at the South Atlantic MLA
conference either this year or next. You could join a Percy panel and give
us a 20 minute version of Lost in the Cosmos through the lens of your
research. What do you think?

Best to you,

Rhonda

Sent from my iPhone

On Aug 21, 2023, at 10:28 AM, Justin Bonanno <bonannju AT gmail.com> wrote:

?
Thank you, Henry! I'd like to acknowledge Leslie Marsh and Rhonda McDonnell
for their help in bringing the manuscript to fruition. A special thanks,
also, goes to those responsible for bringing *Symbol & Existence *into
print. This book helped immensely in my attempt to better understand
Percy's semiotics.

In essence, the book is about meaning, symbols, and existence. I work
through the intellectual roots of Percy's thought in Maritain, Heidegger,
Susanne Langer, etc. The book can serve as both an intro to Percy's
semiotic thought and an explication of the importance of his work for our
current historical moment. It could make for a good text in a graduate
seminar on semiotics, hermeneutics, and/or philosophy of communication. It
could also serve as a useful guide if you'd like to understand what Percy
is up to in *Lost in the Cosmos. *

I wish the book wasn't so prohibitively expensive. But alas, I had little
(no) control over the price. C'est la vie. If you have a library budget,
perhaps you'd consider requesting that it get added to your library
collection. The semester has just begun here, so things are about to get
rather hectic. However, if I find some time in the next few months, perhaps
I will post a talk or video reflecting upon the book's contents.

God bless,
Justin

On Sun, Aug 20, 2023 at 12:00?PM <percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org> wrote:

> Send Percy-L mailing list submissions to
>         percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>         https://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>         percy-l-request AT lists.ibiblio.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
>         percy-l-owner AT lists.ibiblio.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Percy-L digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
>    1. NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT - "Walker Percy and the Crisis of
>       Meaning: Communication in the Ruins, " Justin N. Bonanno, 2023
>       (Henry P. Mills III)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2023 13:09:21 -0400
> From: "Henry P. Mills III" <wppdirector AT gmail.com>
> To: "Percy-L: Literary and Philosophical Discussion"
>         <percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org>
> Subject: [percy-l] NEW BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT - "Walker Percy and the
>         Crisis of Meaning: Communication in the Ruins, " Justin N. Bonanno,
>         2023
> Message-ID:
>         <
> CAPHQa6T0vZJFGh+AhFv3jG3s6+oRZDGCuG0k0tSx4CjZTcUNTA AT mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>
> Congratulations to listserv member Justin N. Bonanno on the release of his
> new study, "Walker Percy and the Crisis of Meaning: Communication in the
> Ruins? (Springer International Publishing, 2023). Here following is
> information for members to enjoy, including how to access at no cost the
> first 23 pages of the book's introduction.
>
>
> Congratulations, Justin! We're all esteemed to have you as a part of the
> Percy-L community. Members are invited to offer their remarks and
> encouraged to forward the announcement on to others.
>
> Best regards, Henry Mills
>
>
> --
>
> Publisher?s Overview:
>
> In this book, Justin N. Bonanno builds off of the recent philosophical work
> on Walker Percy?s writings. While it is valuable to appreciate Percy as a
> novelist, Bonanno approaches Percy from the perspective of Continental
> philosophy and the rhetorical tradition. Unpacking the works of several key
> authors that influenced Percy (e.g. Sartre and Heidegger), Bonanno offers a
> fresh philosophical account of Percy's ideas concerning the relationship
> between symbols and existence. In particular, he focuses on how Percy?s
> ideas emerge from the thought of Ernst Cassirer, Susanne Langer, Jacques
> Maritain, Jean-Paul Sartre, Gabriel Marcel, Martin Heidegger, Viktor
> Shklovsky, S?ren Kierkegaard, and St. Thomas Aquinas.
>
>
> Book Introduction:
>
> For the first 23 pages of the book?s introduction, including its table of
> contents, go to Google Books
>
>
> https://www.google.com/books/edition/Walker_Percy_and_the_Crisis_of_Meaning/SbnQEAAAQBAJ?hl=en&gbpv=0
>
>
>
> --
>
> Henry P. Mills III
>
> Director & Editor, The Walker Percy Project
>
> www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
>
> wppdirector AT gmail.com
> -------------- next part --------------
> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
> URL: <
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/pipermail/percy-l/attachments/20230819/c07276a9/attachment-0001.html
> >
>
> ------------------------------
>
> Subject: Digest Footer
>
> _______________________________________________
> Percy-L mailing list
> Percy-L AT lists.ibiblio.org
> https://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
> End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 185, Issue 2
> ***************************************
>


--
Justin Bonanno, PhD
https://jnbonanno.com








----------------------------------
USING PERCY-L
* Read Percy-L Charter and Policies:
https://ibiblio.org/wpercy/listserv/charter-policies.html
* Manage Your Membership: https://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
* Submit a Post to Percy-L: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
* Contact the Listserv Manager: percy.listserv.manager AT gmail.com

LISTSERV ARCHIVES
* View Percy-L Discussion Archives:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/percy-l/
* Search Percy-L Discussion Archives:
https://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/listserv/how-to-search-archives.html

THE WALKER PERCY PROJECT
* Visit The Walker Percy Project website: https://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy




----------------------------------
USING PERCY-L
* Read Percy-L Charter and Policies:
https://ibiblio.org/wpercy/listserv/charter-policies.html
* Manage Your Membership: https://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l
* Submit a Post to Percy-L: percy-l AT lists.ibiblio.org
* Contact the Listserv Manager: percy.listserv.manager AT gmail.com

LISTSERV ARCHIVES
* View Percy-L Discussion Archives:
https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/percy-l/
* Search Percy-L Discussion Archives:
https://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy/listserv/how-to-search-archives.html

THE WALKER PERCY PROJECT
* Visit The Walker Percy Project website: https://www.ibiblio.org/wpercy
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.ibiblio.org/sympa/arc/percy-l/attachments/20230821/99eff031/attachment-0001.html>

------------------------------

Subject: Digest Footer

_______________________________________________
Percy-L mailing list
Percy-L AT lists.ibiblio.org
https://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/percy-l


------------------------------

End of Percy-L Digest, Vol 185, Issue 4
***************************************

--

Justin Bonanno, PhD

https://jnbonanno.com