Leslie Marsh - Theology and Geometry: Essays on John Kennedy Tooles a Confederacy of Dunces

Theology and Geometry

Politics, Literature, and Film

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The Politics, Literature, and Film series is an interdisciplinary examination of the intersection of politics with literature and/or film. The series is receptive to works that use a variety of methodological approaches, focus on any period from antiquity to the present, and situate their analysis in national, comparative, or global contexts. Politics, Literature, and Film seeks to be truly interdisciplinary by including authors from all the social sciences and humanities, such as political science, sociology, psychology, literature, philosophy, history, religious studies, and law. The series is open to both American and non-American literature and film. By putting forth bold and innovative ideas that appeal to a broad range of interests, the series aims to enrich our conversations about literature, film, and their relationship to politics.

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Theology and Geometry: Essays on John Kennedy Tooles A Confederacy of Dunces, edited by Leslie Marsh

Theology and Geometry

Essays on John Kennedy Tooles
A Confederacy of Dunces

Edited by
Leslie Marsh

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ISBN 978-1-4985-8547-7 (cloth : alk. paper)

ISBN 978-1-4985-8548-4 (electronic)

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In memory of my mother, Florence

and my father, Harry

Contents

H. Vernon Leighton

Jessica Hooten Wilson

Kenneth B. McIntyre

Leslie Marsh

Stephen Utz

W. Kenneth Holditch

Tison Pugh

Olga Colbert

Anthony G. Cirilla

Connie Eble

Christopher R. Harris

The chapters collected here do not stringently conform to an a priori editorial expectation that certain aspects of the novel must be tackled. The brief was simply that each contributor write solely on that aspect which motivated them. A different set of writers could well have come up with an equally plausible but different selection of topics.

As things stand, there are many points of contentionand many of confluence. All the chapters were written in good faith by authors with no axe to grind and, at base, have entered into sympathy with the novel.

However one comes to John Kennedy Tooles A Confederacy of Dunces , all roads lead to Walker Percy. I cant speak for all of the contributors to this collection, but I suspect that four or five, maybe six (myself included), came to Confederacy directly via Percy. Aside from the well-known story of Percys fortuitous intercession and his Introduction, by definition the benchmark of Confederacy scholarship, the clue to the significance of Confederacy lies obliquely with Percy himself. The communion (in the fullest sense of the word) between these two writers, though touched upon by the late Richard Keller Simon, has yet to be expansively explored.