Papers Presented

Thursday, October 25

Registration 3:00-6:00 p.m.

University Center, 4th Floor, Indian Room

Presentations

(Redhawks & Heritage Rooms)

Session 1

Plenary Session

3:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m., Thursday, Redhawks Room

Moderator: Christopher Rieger, Southeast Missouri State University

“William Faulkner, Robert Penn Warren, and Walker Evans: Influence, Intertextuality, and Ekphrasis”

—Joseph Millichap, Western Kentucky University, founding Director of the Robert Penn Warren Center

“‘The world is like an enormous spider web’: The Contrasting Legacies of Thomas Sutpen and Cass Mastern”

—Robert Hamblin, Director, Center for Faulkner Studies, Southeast Missouri State University

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 Warren Undergraduate Writing Contest

Dr. Christopher Rieger, Assistant Director, Center for Faulkner Studies

Stephanie Larson, Purdue University, 1st Place

“Beyond Benjy: Examining The Sound and the Fury Through the Lens of Disability Studies”

Ethan King, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, 2nd Place

“Faulkner, the Picaresque, and the ‘Hell Fire’ Capitalism of Flem Snopes”

Introduction of Keynote Speaker

Dr. Carol Scates, Chairperson, Department of English, Southeast Missouri State University

Keynote Address:

“Angelic Acrobats and Fallen Southern Women: William Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren Go to the Circus”

Patricia Bradley

Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University and former president of the Robert Penn Warren Circle

Reception for Professor Bradley 9:00 p.m.

At the home of Robert and Kaye Hamblin, 313 Themis

All conference participants are invited to attend.

 Friday, October 26

Registration and Coffee Service 8:00 a.m.

University Center, 4th Floor, Indian Room

Panels and Presentations

(Redhawks & Heritage Rooms)

Session 2

Faulkner, Warren, and Philosophy

8:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m., Friday, Redhawks Room

Moderator: Laurel Eason, Catawba College

“Senseless Punishment: Faulkner’s Light in August and Camus’ The Stranger”

—Jonathan Bradley, Middle Tennessee State University

“The ‘Burden’ of Knowledge: A Study of Knowing in a Consideration of William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom! and Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men”

—Laurel Eason, Catawba College

“From the Circle of Time and Memory to the Circus of Fiction: Bolton Lovehart and a Few Faulknerian Puppets”

—Françoise Buisson, Université de Pau et des Pays de l’ Adour

The Bible, the Big Bang, and Dixiecrats

8:30 a.m.-10:00 a.m., Friday, Heritage Room

Moderator: Thomas Eaton, Southeast Missouri State University

“Thomas Sutpen’s Solitary Furnace Experience: The Book of Daniel in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!”

—Barry Hudek, University of Mississippi

“From Chaos to Clarity: Faulkner, Joyce and the Big Bang of Narrative Evolution”

—Kevin A. Brown, Middle Tennessee State University

“Kingdom Meets Kinfolk: Political Skepticism in William Faulkner's The Mansion, Robert Penn Warren’s All the King’s Men, and Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby."

      —Thomas Eaton, Southeast Missouri State University

Session 3

Class, Character, and Influential Constructs in Faulkner and Warren

10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Friday, Redhawks Room

Organizer and Moderator: Ted Atkinson, Mississippi State University

“‘For the end of man is to know’: Gavin Stevens’s Burden”

—Lorie Watkins, William Carey University

“Reclassifying Cultural Mythology in Absalom, Absalom!”

—Ula Gaha, Mississippi State University Libraries

“Poor Man’s Fight: Class Fantasies, Hollywood Liberalism, and the Bush Doctrine in Film Adaptations of ‘Two Soldiers’ and All the King’s Men”

—Ted Atkinson, Mississippi State University

Faulkner and Madness

10:30 a.m.-12:00 p.m., Friday, Heritage Room

Moderator: David Becker, Southeast Missouri State University

“Freud, Lacan and The Sound and the Fury’s Jason Compson: The Manchild You Love to Hate”

—Mark B. Friedlander, California State University, Long Beach

“‘My, my, a body does get around’: Sexuality and Violence in William Faulkner’s Light in August”

—Carey Sturgeon, Indiana State University

“The Three Lives of Rosa Coldfield”

—Brian Reed, the American University of Nigeria

Session 4

The Natural World, Human Nature, and the Nature of Revision

1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m., Friday, Redhawks Room

Moderator: Christopher Rieger, Southeast Missouri State University

“'Long[ing] to know the world's name': Crime against Nature and the Uprooted Self from Faulkner's Doomed Wilderness to Warren's Wasteland”

—Rebekah Taylor, Kent State University

“Missing Judas: Faulkner’s Last Minute Revisions of A Fable”

—Christopher Rieger, Southeast Missouri State University

“Beyond Benjy: Examining The Sound and the Fury Through the Lens of Disability Studies”

—Stephanie Larson, Purdue University

Race and Miscegenation in Faulkner

1:30 p.m.-3:00 p.m., Friday, Heritage Room

Moderator: Ren Denton, University of Memphis

“Discovering the Third Race: the Racial Construction of Characters in William Faulkner’s Absalom, Absalom!”

—Amanda Trainham, State University of New York, Oswego

“The Moses That Escapes from Reality: A Reappraisal of Faulkner’s Isaac McCaslin”

—Wen-ching Ho, Feng Chia University

“‘The space where the daughter? daughter? daughter? never had quite showed’: Faulkner's Intertextual Narrative Gaps, Sounds of Blackness, and Sexuality”

—Ren Denton, University of Memphis

Session 5

Things Faulkner Liked: How Gay Men, Huey Long, and College Football Influenced the Writing of William Faulkner

3:30 p.m-5:00 p.m., Friday, Redhawks Room

Organizer and Moderator: Pip Gordon, University of Mississippi

“Naples Re-Visited: A New Perspective on Same-Sex Desire in ‘Divorce in Naples’”

—Pip Gordon, University of Mississippi

“Comparative Designs: Huey Long, Thomas Sutpen, and Willie Stark”

—J. Christopher O’Brien, University of Mississippi

“‘The only way a young man could earn money in school’: ‘Wild Palms,’ The National Sporting Press, and the Professionalization of College Football”

—Jason Zerbe, University of Mississippi

Biographical Influences on the Works of William Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren

3:30 p.m.-5:00 p.m., Friday, Heritage Room

Moderator: Laura Edwards, Southeast Missouri State University

“Robert Penn Warren's Visit to Longwood”

—Bill Frank, Longwood University

“Faulkner's Dilsey, Warren's Manty, and Race Politics”

—Dennis Negron, Southern Adventist University

“'Long years ago, in Minneapolis...’: An Examination of Robert Penn Warren's Minnesota Years”

—Daniel Anderson, Dominican University

Reception & Viewing of Rare Book Room 5:30-6:30 p.m.

Faulkner and Warren exhibit from Kent Library’s collections

Kent Library, Main Floor, West Wing

Hosts: Dr. Lisa Speer, Southeast’s Archivist/Head of Kent Library’s Special Collections; Dr. Robert Hamblin, Director, Center for Faulkner Studies; Dr. Christopher Rieger, Assistant Director, Center for Faulkner Studies

Readers’ Theater Presentation 7:00 p.m.

University Center Ballroom

“William Faulkner and Robert Penn Warren: Storytellers”

      Based on the writings of Warren and Faulkner

Scripted and Directed by Dr. Roseanna Whitlow

Instructor of Communications Studies, Southeast Missouri State University

Saturday, October 27

Coffee Service 8:30 a.m.

University Center, 4th Floor, Indian Room

Panels and Presentations

(Redhawks and Heritage Rooms)

Session 6

Civil War and Uncivil Peace

9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m., Saturday, Redhawks Room

Moderator: William Frank, Longwood University

“Unsustainable Freedom: The Civil War Narratives of Warren and Faulkner”

—Shinya Matsuoka, Ryukoku University

“Faulkner's ‘Mountain Victory’ and Warren's Wilderness: Revisions on a Multicultural Civil War”

—Andrew Leiter, Lycoming College

 “Faulkner, the Picaresque, and the ‘Hell Fire’ Capitalism of Flem Snopes”

—Ethan King, University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee

Language, Form, and Narration

9:00 a.m.-10:30 a.m., Saturday, Heritage Room

Moderator: Mark Poor, Southeast Missouri State University

“Repetition as Narrative Technique in The Sound and the Fury”

—Satya Palaparty, Cleveland State University

“The Inadequacy of Language in Robert Penn Warren's Brother to Dragons”

—Fadia Mereani, Middle Tennessee State University

“‘Hearing the dark land talking’: Abjection, Subjectivity, and the Chorotope in William Faulkner's As I Lay Dying”

—Bill Phillips, University of Mississippi

Session 7

Social Control and Coercion

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m., Saturday, Redhawks Room

Moderator: Emily Durham, Southeast Missouri State University

“The Native American Presence in Faulkner and Warren”

—Benjamin Wilson, Xavier University (Cincinnati)

“‘There ought to be a law’: Prohibition in Faulkner and Warren”

—Conor Picken, Louisiana State University

“Subjects of the Boss: Fascism in Absalom, Absalom! and All the King's Men”

—Gary Gravely, Middle Tennessee State University

Engaging the Audience: Readings & Misreadings

10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m., Saturday, Heritage Room

Moderator: Eden Wales Freedman, University of New Hampshire

“Warren's Series of Defenses of Faulkner Against Misreadings”

—Edgar L. Chapman, Bradley University

“‘Just to get it told’: Postwar Sentiments and Faulkner's Requiem for a Nun”

—Kristi Humphreys, Alabama State University

“'You can't understand it': Witnessing Trauma in Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!”

— Eden Wales Freedman, University of New Hampshire

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 27.

Acknowledgements

Conference Planning Committee:

Robert Hamblin, Co-Chair

Christopher Rieger, Co-Chair

 Lisa Speer

David Becker

Mark Poor

We are also especially grateful to:

Southeast Missouri State University, the Office of the Provost, the College of Liberal Arts, the Department of English, the University Center, and Kent Library for hosting the event; Dr. Patricia Bradley for her keynote address; Dr. Roseanna Whitlow and her associates for the dramatic presentation; Dr. Lisa Speer, and Dr. Robert Hamblin for hosting the Rare Book Room reception; and the Southeast Missouri State University Press and Dr. Susan Swartwout for the book display.

Thanks also to:

Presenters and Moderators

Kohlfeld Distributing Inc.

Schnucks

Cape Girardeau Convention & Visitors Bureau

Chartwells

Department of Public Safety

Facilities Management

Southeast Missouri State University Copy Center

Jennifer Geist

Carol Scates

Thomas Eaton

Debrah Raschke

Christine Warren

Carl Bloom

Kaye Hamblin

Emily Vines

Yangzi Duncan

Caleb Tankersley

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 4th floor).

Banquet

The conference banquet is scheduled for 6 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 25, 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

By Patricia L. Bradley, Professor of English at Middle Tennessee State University and author of Robert Penn Warren's Circus Aesthetic and the Southern Renaissance

7 p.m., Thursday, October 25, University Center Ballroom

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, humor, 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.

Faulkner/Warren Exhibit

Books, manuscripts, and other memorabilia from Southeast Missouri State University's Louis Daniel Brodsky Collection of Faulkner materials and from the Warren materials in Kent Llibrary's Special Collections will be on exhibit throughout the conference. The exhibit will be mounted in the Rare Book Room of the 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. 27, 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.)

More information about the conference schedule will be posted soon.