Jessica Hooten Wilson is an author and speaker dedicated to the questions: What are the great stories and how do we pass them on? She is the Louise Cowan Scholar in Residence and a professor of Humanities and Classical Education at the University of Dallas. She is the 2019 recipient of the Hiett Prize in the Humanities. Jessica joins Grant to discuss the impact of Walker Percy on questions of evil and the modern human. They talk about Percy’s role as the great diagnostician, why Lost in the Cosmos is the last self-help book you’ll ever need, and how to develop your own Walker Percy Reading Plan. Topics include:
- Great books
- The existence of evil and the phenomenon of despair
- The spiritual urgency of Dostoevsky
- The quest for the tertium quid
- What a 21st-century Walker Percy protagonist looks like
- The profane as a conduit for grace and the sacred
- How to tend your garden
- A sacramental cosmology
- The contribution of Christian authors to Walker Percy’s legacy
- Seeing the signs and know what they signify
Listen to “Walker Percy and the Modern Search for Self” by Jessica Hooten Wilson on the Beatrice Institute Podcast here.