Political Companion to Walker Percy 9780813141886, 9780813141909, 9780813141893, 2013008896
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English Pages [290] Year 2013
Introduction: Walker Percy, American political life, and indigenous American Thomism / Peter Augustine Lawler and Brian A. Smith -- Walker Percy: a brief biography / Ralph C. Wood -- The moviegoer's cartesian theater: moviegoing as Walker Percy's metaphor for the cartesian mind / Woods Nash -- Walker Percy's critique of the pursuit of happiness in the moviegoer, lost in the cosmos: the last self-help book, and the Thanatos Syndrome / Elizabeth Amato -- On dealing with man / James V. Schall, S.J -- Walker Percy's 'theory of man' and the elimination of virtue / Nathan P. Carson -- Confessing the horrors of radical individualism in Lancelot: Percy, Dostoevsky, Poe / Farrell O'Gorman -- Walker Percy's alternative to scientism in the Thanatos Syndrome / Micah Mattix -- Love and marriage among the ruins / Richard M. Reinsch II -- Walker Percy's last men: love in the ruins as a fable of American decline/ Brian A. Smith -- The second coming of Walker Percy: from segregationist to integrationist / Brendan P. Purdy and Janice Daurio -- Walker Percy, Alexis de Tocqueville, and the stoic and Christian foundations of American Thomism / Peter Augustine Lawler
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Peter Augustine Lawler AN n Brian A. Sn1ith
A POLITICAL COMPANION TO
Walker Percy Edited by Peter Augustine Lawler and Brian A. Smith In 1962, Walker Percy (1916-1990) made a dramatic entrance onto the American literary scene when he won the National Book Award for fiction with his first novel, The Moviegoer. A physician, philosopher, and devout Catholic, Percy dedicated his life to understanding the mixed and somewhat contradictory foundations of American life as a situation faced by the wandering and wondering human soul. His provocative works, rooted in both religious faith and deep skepticism, have made him one of the most instructive and profound figures in moral, political, philosophical, and theological thought. Though often controversial, Percy's work was considered vital by his contemporaries and remains essential for students and scholars. In A Political Companion to Walker Percy, editors Peter Augustine Lawler and Brian A. Smith present the first critical companion dedicated exclusively to Percy's political contributions. This authoritative guide to his fiction and nonfiction works includes seminal essays by Ralph C. Wood, Richard Reinsch II, and James V. Schall, SJ., as well as new analyses of Percy's view of Thomistic realism and his reaction to the American pursuit of happiness. A Political Companion to Walker Percy is as comprehensive as Percy's writings, exploring his critique of the social sciences, distinctive theory of man, thoughts continued on back flap
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Walker Percy Edited by PETER
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