The "Strange Fruit" of Flannery O'Connor: Damning Monuments in Southern Literature and Southern History
This article revisits Flannery O'Connor's racialised Christophany in her short story, "The Artificial N*", in light of contemporary tensions over Confederate monuments in America. It explores her grotesque Christ (manifest in a suburban lawn jockey) that mysteriously acts as a me...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Oxford University Press
2021
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| In: |
Literature and theology
Year: 2021, Volume: 35, Issue: 3, Pages: 309-327 |
| IxTheo Classification: | CD Christianity and Culture KAJ Church history 1914-; recent history KBQ North America NCC Social ethics |
| Further subjects: | B
Theology
B Confederate B Memory B Monuments B Flannery O'Connor B Racism |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This article revisits Flannery O'Connor's racialised Christophany in her short story, "The Artificial N*", in light of contemporary tensions over Confederate monuments in America. It explores her grotesque Christ (manifest in a suburban lawn jockey) that mysteriously acts as a means of grace and effects repentance and reconciliation. It teaches us how to read this racist statuary within the grotesque history of Confederate monuments in the American South. By further situating her story and this history in the matrix of art and community, materiality and memory, her work is able to provide a damning theological critique of the current debate around monument removal, without which we may be content to absent offending sculptures but leave untouched our unreconciled communities and sinful social order. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4623 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Literature and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/litthe/frab018 |