C William Faulkner's fiction is at the center of an unusual ecological study during this year's Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, July 20-25, at the University of Mississippi.
The 30th annual conference "Faulkner and the Ecology of the South" examines the environments in the Nobel Laureate's real world and constructed world.
Since its creation in 1974, the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference has drawn scholars from throughout the United States and the world. Sponsored by the UM Department of English and Center for the Study of Southern Culture, the event is coordinated by the Center for Non-Credit Education.
"Faulkner's fiction is deeply concerned with both the >green' and >brown' landscapes and the >conversation' between them," said Donald Kartiganer, conference director and UM's Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies. His created communities B ranging from the townspeople of Jefferson to the country people of Frenchman's Bend as well as the distinct African American and Native American groups within and without those communities B all exist in one place, part of a rich dynamic of peoples and environments."
Kartiganer and eight other literary scholars and critics from across the United States and Europe lead lectures and discussions at the conference, which opens Sunday, July 20 with registration at 10 a.m. in UM's Yerby Conference Center. Lectures are scheduled in the Paul B. Johnson Commons Ballroom. The conference will conclude with a 5 p.m. closing party Thursday, July 24, in the School of Education auditorium.
Lecturers also are expected to talk about Faulkner's connections to ecology and how his literature fluctuates along with different approaches to literature. Named Yoknapatawpha after the fictional setting for many of the Nobel Laureate's stories and books, the conference is believed to be the longest-running literary event focusing on the works of one author.
The opening reception begins at 2:30 p.m. in the Paul B. Johnson Commons Ballroom.
Six scholars appearing at the conference for the first time are Eric Gary Anderson, associate professor of English at Oklahoma State University; Ann Fisher-Wirth, literary critic, poet and UM professor of English; Keith Marshall, computer graphics designer, art historian, and classical music critic for the New Orleans Times-Picayune; Scott Slovic, professor of literature and environment and director of the Center for Environmental Arts and Humanities at the University of Nevada-Reno; Cecelia Tichi, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Vanderbilt University; and Michael Wainwright, a doctoral candidate at the Royal Holloway Department of English, University of London.
Returning lecturers include Thomas McHaney, Kenneth M. England Professor of Southern Literature at Georgia State University. McHaney is the author or editor of seven books on Faulkner, as well as 10 volumes of the William Faulkner Manuscripts series. He will discuss the ethical and philosophical relationship between Janisse Ray's "The Ecology of a Cracker Childhood" and Faulkner's "Go Down, Moses."
Also returning is Francois Pitavy, professor emeritus of American literature at the University of Burgundy in Dijon, France. Pitavy is the author of several volumes on Southern literature and Faulkner, including Faulkner's "Light in August" and, most recently, "Le Bruit et la Fureur de William Faulkner." In "Faulkner's Impossible Arcadia" he will discuss two attitudes toward nature, one in which the human is dominant, the other in which an Arcadian, peaceful stance is achieved.
Philip Weinstein, Alexander Griswold Cummins Professor of English at Swarthmore College, also returns. He is the author of four books, including "Faulkner's Subject: A Cosmos No One Owns" and "What Else But Love? The Ordeal of Race in Faulkner and Morrison," and editor of "The Cambridge Companion to William Faulkner." Weinstein will focus on the various physical settings in "Absalom, Absalom!"
Other program events will include a reading by novelist Tom Franklin ("Poachers"), and the forthcoming ("Hell at the Breech"); discussions by Faulkner friends and family; sessions on "Teaching Faulkner" directed by James Carothers of the University of Kansas; Robert Hamblin, of the Southeast Missouri State University; Arlie Herron of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga; and Charles Peek of the University of Nebraska at Kearney.
There also will be an exhibition of Faulkner books, manuscripts, photographs, and memorabilia at UM's John Davis Williams Library. Seth Berner, a well-known collector of Faulkneriana, will conduct a special session on collecting Faulkner.
A conference highlight on July 20 is announcement of the winner of the 14th Faux Faulkner Contest, which draws writers who try to produce, according to the rules, "one really good page of really bad Faulkner parody." Coordinated by the author's niece, Dean Faulkner Wells, the contest is sponsored by Hemispheres Magazine/United Airlines, Yoknapatawpha Press, and the University of Mississippi.
Other events will include a Sunday buffet supper served at historic Isom Place, "Faulkner on the Fringe" B an "open-mike" night at Southside Gallery in Oxford, guided day-long tours of northeast Mississippi, a picnic served at Rowan Oak, Faulkner's home, and a closing party Thursday afternoon at Square Books in downtown Oxford. Films relating to Faulkner's life and work will be available for viewing during the week. "Red Hills to Gulf Shores: Autographics," an exhibition of photographs by Todd Bertolaet, will be on display in the Gammill Gallery at Barnard Observatory on UM's Oxford campus.
For more information, for assistance due to a disability or to register for the conference, contact the Center for Non-Credit Education at 662-915-7283 or go to http://www.outreach.olemiss.edu/events/faulkner/. The center also may be contacted at P.O. Box 879, University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677-1848 or by e-mail at [email protected].
Other information on Lafayette/Yoknapatawpha County, Miss., is available through the Oxford Tourism Council at 800-758-9177.
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