CFP: Flannery O'Connor in the Age of Terrorism (5/1/06; O'Connor Conference, 10/5/06-10/7/06)
Flannery O'Connor in the Age of Terrorism: An Academic Conference on
Violence and Grace will be held October 5-7, 2006, at Grand Valley State
University's downtown Grand Rapids (MI) campus. We solicit readings of
O'Connor's works that take into account her own strangely benign view of
violence. She sees it as "capable of returning [her] characters to reality
and preparing them to accept their moment of grace." Regarding "A Good Man
Is Hard to Find" she cautioned, "You should be on the lookout for such
things as the action of grace in the Grandmother's soul, and not for the
dead bodies." Lately, however, critics have begun to disallow O'Connor's