The
annual conference devoted to Nobel Prize-winning author William
Faulkner this year will feature the topic Faulkner and His Contempories
through six days of lectures and discussions by literary scholars and critics.
In addition to formal lectures, there will
be a performance of the folk opera As I Lay Dying by the Nashville singer-songwriter
group Reckon Crew, discussions by Faulkner friends and family, and sessions on
Teaching Faulkner directed by James Carothers (University of Kansas),
Robert W. Hamblin (Southeast
Missouri State University), Arlie E. Herron (University of Tennessee at Chattanooga),
and Charles Peek (University of Nebraska at Kearney).
The
Universitys John Davis Williams Library will display Faulkner books, manuscripts,
photographs, and memorabilia; and the University Press of Mississippi will exhibit
Faulkner books published by university presses throughout the United States. Films
relating to the author’s life and work will be available for viewing during the
week. Ms. Booth’s Garden, an exhibition of photographs by Jack Kotz, will
be on display in the Gammill Gallery at Barnard Observatory.
The
conference will begin on Sunday, July 21, with a reception at the University Museums
for Paradox in Paradise, an exhibition of mixed media artworks by Lea Barton.
This will be followed by an afternoon program of readings from Faulkner and the
announcement of the winners of the thirteenth Faux Faulkner Contest. The contest,
coordinated by the author’s niece, Dean
Faulkner Wells, is sponsored by Hemispheres Magazine/United Airlines,
Yoknapatawpha Press, and the University of Mississippi.
Other
events will include a Sunday buffet supper served at the home of Dr. and Mrs.
M. B. Howorth Jr., Faulkner on the Fringe(an open-mike
evening at Southside Gallery), guided day-long tours of North Mississippi on Tuesday,
a picnic served at Faulkner’s home, Rowan Oak, on Wednesday, and a closing party
Friday afternoon at Square Books.
The
registration fee for the conference is $175 for students, $200 for Friends of
the Center, and $250 for others. The fee includes admission to all program events,
a buffet supper on opening day, a reception on Tuesday, a picnic at Rowan Oak,
conference session refreshments, and a closing reception. The fee does not cover
lodging, the optional tours of Faulkner Country, and meals, except for those aforementioned.
More information about the conference, including a printable registration form,
is available at the Center for the Study of Southern Culture web site, www.olemiss.edu/depts/south/faulkner/.
If
you would like to attend but have not pre-registered, you can still register in
person beginning at 10 a.m. on Sunday at the Yerby Conference Center on the University
of Mississippi campus. Once the opening program begins at 2:30, you may register
in the Johnson Commons foyer anytime during the week that the conference is being
held.
Even if you dont wish to attend
the entire conference, a number of individual events are free and open to the
public, including all scholarly lectures and panel discussions in Johnson Commons,
the Faulkner on the Fringe open-mike night, and gallery exhibitions
at University Museums, the J. D. Williams Library, and Barnard Observatory.
In
addition, tickets to the performance of As I Lay Dying are available for
purchase.
Following is a complete schedule
of events for this years conference. Unless otherwise noted, all events
will be held in Johnson Commons on the University of Mississippi campus.
Sunday, July 21
10:00
a.m.
Registration, Yerby Conference Center
1:00 p.m.
Receptions
for exhibitions: Kate Freeman Clark: A Southern Treasure, paintings
by Kate Freeman Clark, University Museums Ms. Booths Garden,
photographs by Jack Kotz, Barnard Observatory
2:30
p.m.
Opening Session: Welcome from Oxford
Mayor Richard Howorth and Department of English chair Joseph Urgo Rowan Oak
Society, Campbell McCool Presentation of Eudora Welty Awards in Creative Writing
by Charles Reagan Wilson Faux Faulkner Contest Announcement of Winner by Selby
Baterman and Lisa Fann of Hemispheres Magazine/United Airlines Days
of Yoknapatawpha, by V.P. Ferguson, a reading by George Kehoe Dramatic
Readings from Faulkners Fiction, Voices of Yoknapatawpha, selected
and arranged by George Kehoe and Betty Harrington
5:30
p.m.
Buffet Supper, Howorth Home/Old Taylor Road
(requires registration)
8:00 p.m.
Lecture:
Traveling with Faulkner, by Houston Baker
Monday, July 22
9:00
a.m.
Lecture: Getting Good at Doing
Nothing: Faulkner, Hemingway, and the Fiction of Gesture, by Donald
M. Kartiganer
10:30 a.m.
Lecture:
Invisible Men: Faulkner, His Contemporaries, and the Politics of Loving
and Hating the South, by Grace Elizabeth Hale
1:30
p.m.
Lecture: Fixing the Southern Vernacular:
The Contemporaneous Art of William Faulkner and Walker Evans, by Thomas
S. Rankin
3:00 p.m.
Panel: Turn to the Right: Sentimental Foil for The Sound and the
Fury?, by Eoin F. Cannon Parrotlike Underworld Epithet: The
Hard-Boiled Language of Sanctuary, by Peter J. Ingrao Light
in August and Faulkners Sweet Man, by Steven Weisenburger
8:00 p.m.
Lecture:
Surveying the Postage-Stamp Territory: Eudora Welty, Elizabeth Spencer,
and Ellen Douglas, by Peggy Whitman Prenshaw
10:00
p.m.
Faulkner on the Fringe, Open
Mike at Southside Gallery, hosted by Colby Kullman and Milly Moorhead
Tuesday, July 23
9:00 a.m.
Guided
tours of north Mississippi. (requires registration)
5:00
p.m.
Noyes/Smith/Kullman Party, 604 Tyler Place
8:00 p.m.
Lecture:
Cathers War and Faulkners Peace: A Comparison of Two Novels
and More, by Merrill Skaggs
Wednesday,
July 24
8:30 a.m.
Teaching
Faulkner I, Faulkner and His Contemporaries, Influences, and Parallels:
The Sound and the Fury, led by James B. Carothers and Robert W. Hamblin.
(Johnson Commons) Teaching Faulkner II, Faulkner, Writing, and Other
Writers: Getting to and from That Evening Sun, led by Arlie
Herron and Charles A. Peek. (Bondurant Auditorium)
10:30
a.m.
Lecture: Faulkner, Ford and Automobility,
by Deborah Clarke
1:30 p.m.
Discussion:
Deborah Clarke, Donald M. Kartiganer, Thomas S. Rankin, Peggy Whitman Prenshaw,
and Merrill Skaggs
3:00 p.m.
Panel:
Faulkner in Oxford, by M. C. Falkner (moderator), Will Lewis Jr. and
Elizabeth Nichols Shiver
4:40 p.m.
Walk
through Baileys Woods (Meet in the parking lot of University Museums)
5:30 p.m.
Picnic
at Rowan Oak (registration required)
8:00
p.m.
Performance: As I Lay Dying, a Folk
Opera, by Reckon Crew, Education Auditorium. (Ticket required)
Thursday, July 25
9:00
a.m.
Lecture: Blacks and Other Very Dark
Colors: Faulkner and Welty, by Danielle Pitavy-Souques
10:30
a.m.
Lecture: William Faulkner and Other
Famous Creoles: Writers and New Orleans, by W. Kenneth Holditch
1:30 p.m.
Panel:
Faulkners Modernism from the Inside Out, by Sean K. Kelly
Consciously Adapted to French Taste: What the Existentialists Learned from
Faulkner, by Holly Hutton This Time, Maybe This Time: Asynchronous
Faulknerian Narratives, Confederate Epitaphs and the American Iconoclastic Tradition,
by Timothy S. Sedore
8:00 p.m.
Lecture:
The Hemingway-Faulkner Log, by George Monteiro
Friday, July 26
8:30
a.m.
Teaching Faulkner, led by James B. Carothers,
Robert W. Hamblin, Arlie Herron, and Charles A. Peek (Johnson Commons)
10:30 a.m.
Lecture:
William Faulkner and Guimarães Rosa: A Brazilian Connection,
by M. Thomas Inge
1:30 p.m.
Discussion:
W. Kenneth Holditch, M. Thomas Inge, George Monteiro, and Danielle Pitavy-Souques
3:00 p.m.
Faulkner
and North Mississippi, slide show presentation by Arlie Herron
5:00 p.m.
Closing
Party, Off Square Books (registration required)