May 2, 2002

OXFORD, Miss. — Rowan Oak, the Oxford home of Nobel Prize-winning writer William Faulkner, opens to television viewers May 5 via C-SPAN, the public service cable network.

Faulkner’s life and work are the focus of a live 2-4 p.m. broadcast for C-SPAN’s original series, American Writers II: The Twentieth Century, which explores the country’s history through selected writers and examines what their work means to Americans today. The broadcast originates from inside the main house, which remains closed to the public because of renovations.

“It’s doubtful that they could have a series on American writers and not include Faulkner. C-SPAN’s visit is very significant and very right,” said William D. Griffith, curator of Rowan Oak, which is owned by the University of Mississippi.

The public is invited to view the broadcast in the Triplett Alumni Center’s Butler Auditorium on Grove Loop Road.

Viewer questions are expected to fuel discussion by Dr. Don Kartiganer, Howry Professor of Faulkner Studies at the University of Mississippi, and Thadious M. Davis, Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of English at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee. They also are expected to discuss Faulkner’s life and his first major work, The Sound and the Fury.

Kartiganer has written widely on Faulkner and is director of the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference. Among Davis’ publications is The Game of Property: Race, Gender, and Law in Faulkner’s “Go Down, Moses.”

The show encores on C-SPAN May 10 at 7 p.m. Oxford-area schools also have been visited by C-SPAN’s 45-foot-long, bright-yellow bus, which is a mobile classroom and a working production studio.

Those who wish to attend the public airing in Butler Auditorium and require special assistance because of a disability should call the UM Department of English at 915-7439.

Mississippi Writers Page Links
About This Site | New Book Info | News & Events | Literary Landmarks | Mississippi Literary History | Mississippi Publishing | Other Features | Other Web Resources

WRITER LISTINGS:
by author | by title | by place | by year | by genre

SEARCH THE MISSISSIPPI WRITERS PAGE

Ole Miss Links
UM Home Page | English Department | Center for the Study of Southern Culture | The University of Mississippi Foundation