Papers

The Center for Faulkner Studies is sponsoring this program in partnership with the Missouri Humanities Council and with support from the National Endowment for the Humanities.

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 28
Registration  1:00-6:00 p.m.
University Center, 4th Floor, Indian Room

Panels and Presentations
(Redhawks & Heritage Rooms)

Session 1         
Geography, Landscape, and Culture  
1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m., Thursday, Heritage Room
Moderator: Cole Windler, Southeast Missouri State University

“Geographies of Growth: Identity in Intruder in the Dust and Song of Solomon”
Andrew Leiter, Lycoming College

“Hunting for Cultural Hybridity in Faulkner and Morrison: Nature As a Site between a Representation and Its Outside”
Shinya Matsuoka, Hokkaido University of Education, Japan

“Icarus Has Landed: Women and the Pastoral Grounding in Faulkner and Morrison” 
Thomas Eaton, Southeast Missouri State University

The Importance of Place  
1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m., Thursday, Redhawks Room
Moderator: Claire Crabtree, University of Detroit Mercy

“Faulkner's Memphis as Heterotopia and Closet in Sanctuary and ‘There Was a Queen’”
Bob Hodges, University of Mississippi

“The Bottom: Toni Morrison’s Gothic Community in Sula”
Christopher S. Love, University of Southern Mississippi

“The Sacramental, Contaminated Land in Faulkner’s “The Bear” and Morrison’s Beloved”
Claire Crabtree, University of Detroit Mercy

Session 2         
Challenging Gender Roles  
3:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m., Thursday, Redhawks Room
Moderator: Angeline Olliff, California State University-Northridge

“‘Something is happening to me’: Temple Drake’s Gender Performance as Transformation in Sanctuary” 
Claire Mischker, University of Mississippi

“V Is for Virgin: Representations of the Virgin/Whore Dichotomy in Toni Morrison’s Sula and William Faulkner's The Sound and the Fury”
Cara Wilson, Southeast Missouri State University

“William Faulkner’s Hearth and Toni Morrison’s Oven:  The Slow Burn of Masculinity in Go Down, Moses and Paradise”
Jennie Joiner, Keuka College

“From the Margin to the Center:  Dewey Dell’s Pragmatic Resiliency in Faulkner’s As I Lay Dying”
Angeline Olliff, California State University-Northridge

Civil Rights Politics, Cold War Anxieties, and the Black Arts Movement  
3:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m., Thursday, Heritage Room
Organizer and Moderator: Jeffrey Stayton, University of Mississippi

“Gay Ratliff: William Faulkner, the Cold War, and Homosexuality in The Town and The Mansion”
Pip Gordon, University of Mississippi

  “‘Nancy Mannigoe is not even concerned in this’: ‘Playing in the Dark’ with William Faulkner’s Requiem for a Nun”
Melanie Anderson, University of Mississippi

“Freedman Town Comes to Yoknapatawpha: African-American Writers and the Case of William Faulkner”
Jeffrey Stayton, University of Mississippi

Opening Banquet 6:00 p.m.
University Center Ballroom

Welcome 7:00 p.m.
Dr. Ronald Rosati, Provost, Southeast Missouri State University

Recognition: Faulkner and Morrison Undergraduate Writing Contest
Dr. Christopher Rieger, Assistant Director, Center for Faulkner Studies

Chip Badley, University of California-Santa Barbara, 1st Place
Amy Glaves, Northern Illinois University, 2nd Place
Karly Eaton, University of South Carolina, 3rd Place

Reception for Professor Duvall 9:00 p.m.
At the home of Robert and Kaye Hamblin, 313 Themis
All conference participants are invited to attend.    

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 29
Registration and Coffee Service 8:00 a.m.
University Center, 4th Floor

Panels and Presentations
(Redhawks & Heritage Rooms)

Session 3
Discourse, Displacement, and Disability  
8:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m., Friday, Redhawks Room
Moderator: Jennie Joiner, Keuka College

“Critical Reception of Toni Morrison in China”
Jincai Yang, Nanjing University, People’s Republic of China

“Not the Same Old Faulknerian Song and Dance:  Isolation in Toni Morrison’s Beloved”
Lorie Watkins Fulton, William Carey University

“Toni Morrison's Use of Postcolonial Aesthetics in Beloved and A Mercy”
Wen-ching Ho, Feng Chia University, Taiwan

Personal and Collective Memory
8:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m., Friday, Heritage Room
Moderator: William Frank, Longwood University

“‘How can I say things that are pictures?’:  The Act of Remembering in Morrison’s Beloved”
Laura Linneman, University of Dayton

“Art and Immortality: William Faulkner, the Keatsian Urn, and the Creation of The Sound and The Fury”
Demetra Perros, Southeast Missouri State University

“On Morrison and Memory: Why the Past Is Not Your Best Friend”
Karly Eaton, University of South Carolina 

Session 4
Psychological Approaches 
10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Friday, Heritage Room
Moderator: Victoria Bryan, University of Mississippi

“Modernism and/or Black Nationalism in William Faulkner, Ralph Ellison, and Toni Morrison”
Philip Goldstein, University of Delaware

“Shifting Boundaries: Charles Bon and Beloved as Symptoms of Hegemonic Ideology”
Leslie Walker Bickford, Winthrop University

“‘Trying to say’: Uncovering a Post-Imagist Poetic in The Sound and the Fury”
Lauren Nicole Norton, University of California-Davis

“Joe Christmas’s Formation of Race and Sexuality in Light in August”
Victoria Bryan, University of Mississippi

Popular and Literary Culture 
10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Friday, Redhawks Room
Moderator: Alisa Smith-Riel, Northern Illinois University

“‘All my shrimp was dead and gone’: Male Impotence in William Faulkner's Sanctuary and Robert Johnson’s ‘Dead Shrimp Blues’”
Tim Ryan, Northern Illinois University 

“‘A Magazine of That Type’: Faulkner's Modernism and the Shudder Pulps”
Matthew Vaughn, University of Tulsa

“Empowerment and Insanity: The Gaze in Faulkner's Light in August and Morrison's The Bluest Eye” 
Alisa Smith-Riel, Northern Illinois University

Session 5
Confronting Slavery
1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m., Friday, Redhawks Room
Moderator: Gretchen Martin, The University of Virginia’s College at Wise

“Teaching Race and Equity to Middle School Students Using William Faulkner’s The Unvanquished”
Lucie Blevins-Brownson, Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland

“Molly ‘We All Dar’:  The Formation of Collective Identity in Morrison’s Beloved and Faulkner’s Go Down, Moses”
Adam Long, University of Kansas

“Deadly Benevolences in Faulkner and Morrison”
Gretchen Martin, The University of Virginia’s College at Wise

Narrative Technique 
1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m., Friday, Heritage Room
Moderator: Amber Walker, Southeast Missouri State University

“Volatile and Sentient Forces: The Written Text in Absalom, Absalom!” 
Kathryn Olsen, Auburn University

“The Bluest Eye and the Grecian Urn: Faulkner's and Morrison’s Quest for Beauty”
Françoise Buisson, Université de Pau et des Pays de l’Adour, France

“‘The Ultimate Degradation’: Spiritualism in the Aftermath of the Civil War, Absalom, Absalom! and Beloved”
Michelle Moore, The College of Dupage

“Stumbling Toward Orality: Circling the Echoes of As I Lay Dying and Beloved”
Chip Badley, University of California-Santa Barbara

Session 6
Transactions between Reader and Writer 
3:30 p.m-5:00 p.m., Friday, Redhawks Room
Moderator: Eden Wales, University of New Hampshire

“Six Degrees of Separation: Faulkner, the Harlem Renaissance, and a Response to Morrison’s ‘Unspeakable Things Unspoken’”
Terri Wallace, Purdue University / The Orchard School, Indianapolis

“‘We see dimly people’: Quentin, Shreve, Faulkner, and Reader as Archaeologists in Absalom, Absalom!”
Dylan D. Phillips, Winthrop University

“‘Something is happening to me’:  Witnessing Trauma in Faulkner’s Sanctuary”
Eden Wales, University of New Hampshire

Rethinking the Modern  
3:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m., Friday, Heritage Room
Moderator: Ted Atkinson, Mississippi State University

“Many Thousands Gone: Nascent Colonial Whiteness in Go Down, Moses and A Mercy”
Theresa M. Towner, University of Texas at Dallas

“Enchanting Ghosts: Memory and Magical Thinking in Beloved and As I Lay Dying”
Lisa Hinrichsen, University of Arkansas

“Defying the Cultural Logic of Southern Exceptionalism in Absalom, Absalom! and Song of Solomon”
Ted Atkinson, Mississippi State University

Reception & Viewing of Rare Book Room  5:30-6:30 p.m.
Kent Library, Main Floor, West Wing
Hosts: Dr. Lisa Speer, Southeast’s Archivist/Head of Kent Library’s Special Collections; Dr. Robert Hamblin, Director of the Center for Faulkner Studies; and Louis Daniel Brodsky, Curator of the Brodsky Collection

Faulkner exhibit from Louis Daniel Brodsky Collection of William Faulkner Materials, Southeast Missouri State University.

Readers’ Theater Presentation 7:00 p.m.
University Center Ballroom

“Faulkner, Morrison, and Nobel:  A Performance”
Based on the writings of Morrison and Faulkner
Scripted and Directed by Dr. Roseanna Whitlow
Instructor of Communications Studies, Southeast Missouri State University
Supported by the Missouri Humanities Council

SATURDAY, OCTOBER 30
Coffee Service 8:00 a.m.
University Center, 4th Floor

Panels and Presentations
(Redhawks and Heritage Rooms)

Session 7
Folk Tales and Myth 
8:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m., Saturday, Redhawks Room
Moderator: Lisa Hinrichsen, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

“On a ‘quest’:  Tracing the Story of the Fisher King in Beloved”
Diana Obeid, Old Dominion University

“The Dynamics of Allusion: Genesis 1-3 in the Fiction of William Faulkner and Toni Morrison”
Tara M. Tuttle, St. Catharine College

“The Influence of Folktales on Selected Literature by William Faulkner and Toni Morrison”
Tommie Jackson, St. Cloud State University

Labor and Cultural Materialism 
8:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m., Saturday, Heritage Room
Moderator: Deborah Raschke, Southeast Missouri State University

“The Work of Earth: An Exploration of Human Labor and Laborers in Faulkner and Morrison”
Sarah Bloom, University of Arkansas, Monticello

“Culture and Wealth: Twin Illusions in Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!”
Brian K. Reed, The American University of Nigeria

“‘Horror in this house’: The Flawed Designs of Thomas Sutpen and Jacob Vaark”
Amy Oatis, University of Arkansas

Session 8
Interrogating Race 
10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Saturday, Redhawks Room
Moderator: Amy Schmidt, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

“Unspeakable Things Still Unspoken: Faulkner, Morrison, and the Presence of the Native American”
Kathryn West, Bellarmine University
 
“‘Gazing Beyond Place and Time’: Vision, Sight, and Insight in Toni Morrison's A Mercy”
Catherine Calloway, Arkansas State University

 “‘Not-me, Not-free’: The (Un)Making of Identity in Toni Morrison’s A Mercy”
Amy Schmidt, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville

Questioning Sexuality
10:30 a.m.12:00 p.m., Saturday, Heritage Room
Moderator: Jincai Yang, Nanjing University, People’s Republic of China

“The Neutering of the Modern Hero: The Emasculation of Quentin Compson and Horace Benbow in The Sound and the Fury and Sanctuary”
Gary Gravely, Middle Tennessee State University 

“Absalom, Absalom! as Rosa Coldfield’s ‘Trashy Myth of Reality’s Escape’”
Shannon Finck, Georgia State University

“Triangles and Metaphors: A Reading of Multi-Layered Relations in The Sound and the Fury and Absalom, Absalom!”
Pamela P. Kung, University of California-Irvine

“‘He Will Never Be a Man’: Reading Males as Castrated Horses in William Faulkner’s Sanctuary”
Amy Glaves, Northern Illinois University

Historical Tour 1:30-3:30 p.m.
Led by Dr. Frank Nickell, Director, Center for Regional History
Departs from front of University Center

For those not participating in the historical tour, the conference will conclude at noon on Saturday, October 30.

Agenda

Meeting Place

The conference will be held in the University Center (on Normal Avenue) on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University. Paper sessions will meet in the Redhawks Room, Heritage Room, and Indian Room (all on the 4th floor). The Banquet and Keynote Address will be held in the Ballroom (on the 4thfloor).

Banquet

The conference banquetis scheduled for6 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 28, with a buffet dinner followed by the keynote address. Tickets to the banquet are $15, and paid reservations must be received by Oct. 1.

Keynote Address

(To be announced)

Papers

This conference will feature scholarly presentations on a variety of topics related to William Faulkner and/or Robert Penn Warren. Topics will include Faulkner's and Warren's narrative techniques as well as their treatments of race, gender, class, family, the South, and other topics. There will also be papers on Faulkner and Warren in the classroom. Sessions are scheduled for Thursday afternoon, all day Friday, and Saturday morning.

A list of papers to be presented will be posted on this website closer to the date of the conference.

Faulkner/Warren Exhibit

Books, manuscripts, and other memorabilia from Southeast Missouri State University's Louis Daniel Brodsky Collection of William Faulkner materials will be on exhibit throughout the conference. Also available for viewing will be Robert Penn Warren materials from Southeast's Special Collections.The exhibit will be mounted in the Rare Book Room of Kent Library, next door to the University Center. Louis Daniel Brodsky, the Curator of the Brodsky Collection; Lisa Speer, Head of Kent Library's Special Collections; and Robert W. Hamblin, Director of the Center for Faulkner Studies, will host a special showing of the exhibit from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m., Friday, October 26. A reception for conference registrants will accompany that event.

A Reader's Theater Presentation based on the writings of William Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren

7:00 p.m., Friday, October 26
University Center Ballroom

Historical Tour

On Saturday afternoon, Oct. 30, from 1:30 to 3:30, conference participants wll be treated to a bus tour of the Mississippi River riverfront and other historic sites in and around Cape Girardeau. Seating is limited, so please register in advance. Cost is $12 per person. (For those not taking the historical tour, the conference will conclude at noon on Saturday.)