Papers by Angela Alaimo O'Donnell
Christianity & Literature, 2006
American Catholic Studies
American Catholic Studies
American Catholic Studies
Radical Ambivalence, 2020
Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O’Connor is the first book-length study of O’Connor’s attit... more Radical Ambivalence: Race in Flannery O’Connor is the first book-length study of O’Connor’s attitude toward race in her fiction and correspondence and is the first study to include controversial material from unpublished letters that reveals the complex and troubling nature of her thoughts on the subject. O’Connor lived and wrote in her native Georgia during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights movement. In one of her letters, O’Connor frankly expresses her double-mindedness regarding the social and political upheaval taking place in the U.S.: “I hope that to be of two minds about some things is not to be neutral.” This double-mindedness also manifests itself in O’Connor’s fiction. Drawing on critical whiteness studies, this study analyzes the ways in which O’Connor critiques the unjust racial practices of the South in her stories and other writings yet unconsciously upholds them; explores O’Connor’s ambivalence with regard to contemporary politics; considers the influence of theology and the Catholic Church on O’Connor’s attitudes; examines the complex role played by “Africanist” presence in the construction of white consciousness in O’Connor’s stories; and explores the theme of thwarted communion between the races in her fiction and correspondence. The study concludes that O’Connor’s race-haunted writing serves as the literary incarnation of her uncertainty about the great question of her era and of her urgent need, despite considerable reluctance, to address the fraught relationship between the races.
Radical Ambivalence
Chapter 1, “‘Whiteness Visible’: Critical Whiteness Studies and O’Connor’s Fiction,” summarizes t... more Chapter 1, “‘Whiteness Visible’: Critical Whiteness Studies and O’Connor’s Fiction,” summarizes the treatment of race in O’Connor criticism from the 1970s to the present, outlines some key concepts of racial formation theory and whiteness studies, and considers their potential relevance and application to O’Connor’s work. The chapter includes a brief history of the idea of race, an examination of the so-called “color line” and the racial code observed by whites and blacks in the South, and an exploration of O’Connor’s attitudes toward that code as evident in some of her letters and in her representations of black characters in her stories. The chapter includes analysis of her first and last stories, “The Geranium” and “Judgement Day.”
Radical Ambivalence, 2020
Chapter 3, “Theology, Religion, and Race: Constant Conversion and the Beginning of Vision,” consi... more Chapter 3, “Theology, Religion, and Race: Constant Conversion and the Beginning of Vision,” considers the influence of theological concepts of race and the Church on O’Connor’s thinking about race and the application of current theological studies of racism to O’Connor’s work. This includes a review of the history of the Catholic Church’s attitudes toward race and segregation, especially in the South, discussion of the influence of the theological visions of William Lynch and Teilhard de Chardin on O’Connor’s thought, as well as consideration of theologian Brian Massingale’s and M. Shawn Copeland’s recent work on Catholic theological ethics and racial justice. The chapter also contains an analysis of “Revelation.”
American Catholic Studies, 2019
Radical Ambivalence, 2020
Chapter 4, “‘Africanist Presence’ and the Role of Black Bodies,” taking its title and cue from To... more Chapter 4, “‘Africanist Presence’ and the Role of Black Bodies,” taking its title and cue from Toni Morrison’s seminal study of race in American Literature, Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, examines O’Connor’s exploration of the essential role played by African Americans in the construction of a white consciousness. It also considers the work of womanist theologian M. Shawn Copeland on “enfleshing freedom” in which she meditates on the imaging of the black body in Western culture and its implications in the Christian Church. The chapter considers the difference between what anthropologist Mary Douglas refers to as “physical bodies” and “social bodies” and the ways in which these representations and perceptions of the body enter into O’Connor’s work (73). The chapter includes analysis of “Everything that Rises Must Converge,” “The Artificial Nigger,” and “Judgement Day” (reprise).
Flannery O'Connor: Fiction Fired by Faith tells the remarkable story of the gifted young woma... more Flannery O'Connor: Fiction Fired by Faith tells the remarkable story of the gifted young woman who set out from her native Georgia to develop her talents as a writer and eventually succeeded in becoming one of the most accomplished fiction writers of the twentieth century. Struck with a fatal disease just as her career was blooming, O'Connor was forced to return to her rural home and to live an isolated life, far from the literary world she longed to be a part of. In this insightful new biography, Angela Alaimo O'Donnell depicts O'Connor's passionate devotion to her vocation, despite her crippling illness, the rich interior life she lived through her reading and correspondence, and the development of her deep and abiding faith in the face of her own impending mortality. She also explores some of O'Connor's most beloved stories, detailing the ways in which her fiction served as a means for her to express her own doubts and limitations, along with the chall...
Teaching the TraditionCatholic Themes in Academic Disciplines, 2012
Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality
Anglican Theological Review, 2020
John in the Company of Poets: The Gospel in Literary Imagination. By Thomas Gardner. Waco, Tex.: ... more John in the Company of Poets: The Gospel in Literary Imagination. By Thomas Gardner. Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2011. 222 pp. $69.95 (cloth).Upon opening Thomas Gardners John in the Company of Poets, the reader encounters his dedication: "For my students." The title of the book, arresting as it is, identifies the subject and suggests the ambitious nature of the authors project. Gardner delivers on his promise to set John's account of the Good News beside the work of twenty poets, ranging from the Renaissance era to the present, and conducts an engaging literary study of this most challenging of gospels as seen through their eyes. But it is his dedication, understated as it is, that indicates the tenor and fervor of the project. As a distinguished professor of English at Virginia Tech, Gardner has spent decades in the classroom teaching students how to engage in the process of elucidating poetic texts, and his passion for his vocation is evident on every page ...
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Papers by Angela Alaimo O'Donnell