Women Writers and the US South: Flannery O'Connor
The Study Sessions: 'Women Writers and the US South: Violence, Aberration and the 'Southern Gothic' are focusedon different versions of the American South as realised in the work of four of its authors. Beginning with Flannery O'Connor (1925 - 1964) and moving on to Alice Walker (1944 - ), Eudora Welty (1909 - 2001) and Carson McCullers (1917 - 1967), each session will provide a context in which to discuss representations of race, gender and sexuality. We will look at the issue of genre (Gothic, Grotesque, Regionalism) and the complex question of what it might mean to be a writer in, of and about The South.
Convened in collaboration with author Graham Caveney.
Flannery O'Connor and the Christ-Haunted South, with Richard King
Flannery O'Connor was a believing Catholic in an overwhelmingly fundamentalist white Protestant South. Thus her treatment of religious is often two-edged-fascinated by the religious sensibility but critical of the Protestant religious culture. Wise Blood explores these issues in a sometimes humorous and sometimes painful fashion. John Houston's film Wise Blood is also successful in capturing this complex reality.
Richard King is emeritus professor in the department of American and Canadian Studies at The University of Nottingham. His research is concerned with American culture and politics, and race relations including black/white ethnic issues. He has authored influential books on the subject such as, Civil Rights and the Idea of Freedom (University of Georgia Press, 1996), Race, Culture and the Intellectuals, 1940-1970 (John Hopkins University Press, 2004) and Arendt and America (Chicago, 2015).
Event:
Women Writers and the US South: Flannery O'ConnorDates:
26 Sep 2017, 6.30pm–8.30pmSupported by:
