Preachers and Misfits, Prophets and Thieves: The Minister in Southern Fiction G. Lee Ramsey, Jr.

Van Dyke Center, Board of Visitors Lounge Thursday, February 21, 7:30pm

Ministers preach and pray, comfort and cajole throughout the South and its fiction. From the novels of Ralph Ellison and Clyde Edgerton, to Walker Percy and Lee Smith, preachers and misfits, prophets and thieves show the varied faces of religion in a region that Flannery O’Connor termed “Christ-haunted.” This lecture will explore the cultural, theological and pastoral significance of the Christian minister through the frequently zany, sometimes disturbing, and always entertaining world of Southern fiction.