Theology and Geometry: Essays on John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces

by Leslie Marsh (Editor), Anthony G. Cirilla (Contribution by), Olga Colbert (Contribution by), Matt Dawson (Contribution by), Connie Eble (Contribution by)

Overview

This collection, the first of its kind, brings together specially commissioned academic essays to mark fifty years since the death of John Kennedy Toole.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781498585491
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	03/04/2022
Series:	Politics, Literature, & Film
Pages:	202
Sales rank:	669,976
Product dimensions:	6.01(w) x 8.62(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Leslie Marsh is senior researcher in the department of pathology and laboratory medicine at The University of British Columbia.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: A Theory of Humor (Abridged) and the Comic Mechanisms of John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces

H. Vernon Leighton

Chapter 2: The Literary Foolishness of Ignatius Reilly

Jessica Hooten Wilson

Chapter 3: ‘Amusingness Forced to Figure Itself Out’: Ignatius J. Reilly, Aesthetic Individualism, and the Modernism of Anti-Modernism

Kenneth McIntyre

Chapter 4: Theology and Geometry and Taste and Decency

Leslie Marsh

Chapter 5: The Consolation of Dunces

Stephen Utz

Chapter 6: Ignatius Reilly as the Knight of Faith

W. Kenneth Holditch

Chapter 7: John Kennedy Toole’s Queer Carnivalesque in A Confederacy of Dunces

Tison Pugh

Chapter 8: Ignatius’ Brain: Food and Sex in John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces Olga Colbert

Chapter 9: Dunces and Dialogue: Ignatius J. Reilly’s Menippean Misreadings and Onanistic Annotations of Boethian Philosophy

Anthony G. Cirilla

Chapter 10: The Representation of Speech in A Confederacy of Dunces

Connie Eble

Chapter 11: Thelma Toole: As Herself

Christopher R. Harris

Editorial Reviews

This eclectic anthology of chapters on A Confederacy of Dunces, the first of its kind, represents a milestone event in Toole studies, bringing together a diversity of perceptive approaches to the novel. This outstanding collection should appeal to anyone wishing to increase their appreciation and understanding of Toole’s comic masterpiece. “

Peter McCluskey

Theology and Geometry offers an essential examination of an American Classic. As the first collection to explore John Kennedy Toole’s work, it is an original contribution to literary scholarship and further propels A Confederacy of Dunces to its rightful place in the literary canon.

Cory MacLauchlin

Like a multi-faceted jewel, A Confederacy of Dunces refracts light at multiple angles, beckoning the reader to peer beneath its surface. And certainly, much is to be found within its enthralling pages. Those who look might find in the glimmering a suggestion of something more, and Theology and Geometry will certainly help the reader to see it.

VoegelinView