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

[Karey Perkins <kareyperkins AT gmail.com>]

Hi Percy-lovers,

SAMLA’s Annual Meeting in November is hosting another Percy session; below is the CFP.  We’d love submissions from you on either the conference theme or ANY paper idea you may have percolating.  More information about the conference is here: https://southatlanticmla.org/conference; CFP is here:

 

CALL FOR PAPERS on WALKER PERCY 

SOUTH ATLANTIC MODERN LANGUAGE ASSOCIATION: 

SAMLA 96: Seen and Unseen

Friday, November 15 to Sunday, November 17, 2024

Hyatt Regency Jacksonville Riverfront

Jacksonville, FL

Papers for this traditional session may focus on any aspect of Walker Percy’s life and works, either fiction or non-fiction. Especially welcome are topics relevant to the SAMLA 96 conference theme: Seen and Unseen.

Papers for this traditional session may focus on any aspect of Walker Percy’s life and works, either fiction or non-fiction. Especially welcome are topics relevant to the SAMLA 96 conference theme: Seen and Unseen. 

Walker Percy’s writings focus on searches, clues, mysteries, and theories. He was, above all else, a true interdisciplinary thinker whose broad interests were marshaled in service of his worldview. Areas for consideration might include such topics as:

How do these unseen forces inform his works? In what ways do his characters function as searchers or seekers of the unseen? As detectives attempting to solve mysteries? As theorists testing out ideas? Papers explore the underpinnings of Percy’s fiction and nonfiction, particularly those that have been under-explored in the past: How did various fields, such as medicine and psychology, philosophy and anthropology combine in Percy’s works? In what way did he serve as a culture critic of his time? Of the American soul? How did he utilize Henry Veatch or Raymond Chandler, Jakob von Uexküll, Bronislaw Malinowski, or other heretofore unexamined influences in his theories and novels? What might you add to the exploration of his works?

Please send 300-word abstracts on these topics or ANY aspect of Percy’s fiction or non-fiction (not just limited to conference theme) by July 1, 2024, to Dr. Karey Perkins, South Carolina State University, to both kperkin1 AT scsu.edu  and kareyperkins AT gmail.com . Please also include a brief bio and any A/V requirements in your abstract.

Karey 

Karey Perkins, M.A., M.A.T., Ph.D.
Assistant Professor of English
Faculty Senate Secretary
296A Turner Hall, South Carolina State University
Orangeburg, SC 29117
kperkin1 AT scsu.edu | 803-536-8986
www.scsu.edu 
Member, Institute for Studies in Pragmaticism
Texas Tech University, Lubbock, TX  79409-0002
kareperk AT ttu.edu | https://www.depts.ttu.edu/pragmaticism/
https://www.kareyperkins.net/