2022: Faulkner's Modernisms

Could anything be more uncontroversial than to identify William Faulkner as a modernist writer? And yet—in a contemporary moment characterized by the renewal, expansion, diversification, and general flourishing of modernist studies scholarship, we can no longer take for granted what that modernism was, is, or might have been, or in what it might have inhered. Where was Faulkner’s modernism—amidst what competing or nested geographies of modernity should we locate it? When was that modernism—how should we periodize it? Which literary, artistic, or intellectual contemporaries, precursors, or successors best illuminate what Faulkner’s modernism was—and wasn’t? And what new approaches to modernist aesthetics might be generated by taking Faulkner as Exhibit A? The 48th annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha conference will take up the venerable but also excitingly new question of Faulkner’s literary and other modernisms. In addition to five keynote lectures, the conference program will include panel presentations, guided daylong tours of North Mississippi and the Delta, and our ever-popular sessions on “Teaching Faulkner.”

The conference will begin on Sunday, July 17, with a reception at the University Museum, after which the academic program of the conference will open with a keynote address and the program’s first scholarly panel, followed by a buffet supper on the grounds of Faulkner’s home, Rowan Oak. Over the next four days, a busy schedule of lectures and panels will also make room for teaching sessions, an afternoon cocktail reception, a picnic served at Rowan Oak, guided tours, and a closing party on Thursday afternoon, July 21. Throughout the conference, the University’s J. D. Williams Library will display Faulkner books, manuscripts, photographs, and memorabilia. The University Press of Mississippi will exhibit Faulkner books published by university presses throughout the United States, and there will be a display, with books for sale, by Faulkner collector Seth Berner, who will also give a brown bag lunch presentation on “Collecting Faulkner.”

Subscribe to RSS Feed (Opens in New Window)

Schedule
2022
Sunday, July 17th
1:00 PM

Reception

Conference Participants

University Museums

1:00 PM - 2:30 PM

2:30 PM

Family, Nation, Sin: Faulkner in Conversation With Albert Wendt (Samoa) And Elif Shafak (Turkey)

Susan Stanford Friedman, University of Wisconsin

Nutt Auditorium

2:30 PM - 4:00 PM

4:00 PM

Divisions of Aesthetic Labor; Or, When Is Faulkner Not Modern?

Julian Murphet, Adelaide University

Nutt Auditorium

4:00 PM - 5:30 PM

7:30 PM

Evening Program

Kathryn McKee, University of Mississippi
Percival Everett

Nutt Auditorium

7:30 PM

Monday, July 18th
8:00 AM

Panel: Comparative Modernisms

Sascha Morrell, Monash University
Anne MacMaster, Millsaps College
Benoît Tadié, Université de Rennes 2

Nutt Auditorium

8:00 AM - 9:30 AM

9:30 AM

Panel: Race, Region, And Modernism

Ethan King, Boston University
Frances Rowbottom, University of Edinburgh
Peter Lurie, University of Richmond

Nutt Auditorium

9:30 AM - 11:00 AM

11:00 AM

Philosophical Underpinnings of Faulkner’s Modernism: Epistemology, Ontology, Ethics

Kate Schnur, CUNY Queens College
Isadora Wagner, University of Wisconsin
Bernard T. Joy

Nutt Auditorium

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

12:30 PM

Collecting Faulkner

Seth Berner

Nutt Auditorium

12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

2:00 PM

Mechanical and Human Factors in Faulkner Aviation

Michael Zeitlin, University of British Columbia

Nutt Auditorium

2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

3:30 PM

Panel: Cold War Modernisms

Michael Wainright, Royal Holloway, University of London
Matthew D. Sutton, Morehead State University
Yuko Yamamoto, Chiba University

Nutt Auditorium

3:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Tuesday, July 19th
8:00 AM

Teaching Faulkner I

James B. Carothers
Theresa M. Towner, University of Texas, Dallas

Nutt Auditorium

8:00 AM - 9:30 AM

9:30 AM

Panel: Faulkner’s Apprenticeship in Modernism

Brooke P. Alexander, University of Mississippi
Joseph S. Makkos, Louisiana State University
Ryanne McEvoy, Boston University

Nutt Auditorium

9:30 AM - 11:00 AM

11:00 AM

Panel: Narrative Form, Aesthetic Transitions, and the Modernist Novel in the Age of Digital Modernity

Erin Penner, Asbury University
Ben Robbins, University of Innsbruck
John Michael Corrigan, National Chengchi University

Nutt Auditorium

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

12:30 PM

Digitizing Faulkner: Yoknapatawpha in the Twenty-First Century

Johannes Burgers, Ashoka University
Jennie Joiner, Keuka College
Stephen Railton, University of Virginia
Theresa M. Towner, University of Texas, Dallas

Nutt Auditorium

12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

2:00 PM

Modernist Phenomonologies of Segregated Space: A Hypothesis

Leigh Anne Duck, University of Mississippi

Nutt Auditorium

2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

3:30 PM

Panel: Working-Class Modernisms

Amy Foley, Providence College
Sean McCann, Wesleyan University
Maggie E. Morris Davis, Illinois State University

Nutt Auditorium

3:30 PM - 5:00 PM

Wednesday, July 20th
8:00 AM

Teaching Faulkner II

Jennie Joiner, Keuka College
Brian McDonald, School District of Lancaster (Penn.)

Nutt Auditorium

8:00 AM - 9:30 AM

9:30 AM

Panel: Aesthetic and Stylistic Dimensions of Faulkner’s Modernism

Mason Golden
Julie Beth Naoplin, New School
Michał Choiński, Jagiellonian University

Nutt Auditorium

9:30 AM - 11:00 AM

11:00 AM

Panel: Popular Modernisms

John N. Duvall, Purdue University
Dylan Harkin, University of New South Wales
Phillip Gordon, University of Wisconsin, Platteville

Nutt Auditorium

11:00 AM - 12:30 PM

12:30 PM

Library Lecture. Shadows on the Wall: Colonel W. C. Falkner in Legend

Jack D. Elliot Jr.

Nutt Auditorium

12:30 PM - 2:00 PM

2:00 PM

Panel: Faulkner’s Sensational Modernisms

Randall Wilhelm, Anderson University
Frédérique Spill, Université de Picardie
Candace Waid, University of California, Santa Barbara

Nutt Auditorium

2:00 PM - 3:30 PM

3:30 PM

Panel: William Faulkner and Rural Modernism

Ben Child, Colgate University
David A. Davis, Mercer University
Ted Atkinson, Mississippi State University
Jolene Hubbs, University of Alabama

Nutt Auditorium

3:30 PM - 5:00 PM

5:00 PM

Walk Through Bailey Woods

Conference Participants

Departs from Parking Lot behind University Museums

5:00 PM - 6:00 PM

6:00 PM

Picnic Supper

Conference Participants

Rowan Oak

6:00 PM

Thursday, July 21st
9:00 AM

Guided Tours of North Mississippi

Jay Watson, University of Mississippi
Jack D. Elliott Jr.
Scott Barretta
Rhondalyn Peairs

(All Tours Depart from the Parking Lot at the Inn at Ole Miss)

9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

5:30 PM

Closing Party and Signing

Conference Participants

Off Square Books, 129 Courthouse Square, Oxford

5:30 PM