The Center for Faulkner Studies will host the Faulkner and Garca Mrquez Conference Oct. 11-13 on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University. Sponsored by the Missouri Humanities Council, the conference will bring together more than 40 scholars from four countries and 18 states who will present their research on the two Nobel Prize-winning American authors, William Faulkner and Gabriel Garca Mrquez.
We had a tremendous response to this unique literary pairing, said Dr. Christopher Rieger, director of the Center for Faulkner Studies. Were excited to bring so many excellent scholars to our campus to share their work.
The conference opens Thursday, Oct. 11, with a keynote address by Dr. Deborah Cohn, professor of Spanish and Portuguese at Indiana University. Cohn will present Faulkner and Garca Mrquez: Literary Innovators, Public Intellectuals, Cultural Ambassadors at 5:30 p.m. in the University Center Ballroom. This lecture is free and open to the public.
Cohns lecture is geared towards a general audience, Rieger said.
Dr. Cohns lecture will focus on the public roles both authors enjoyed and will be interesting for anyone who wants to learn more about these wonderful writers, he said.
Cohn earned a doctorate in Hispanic studies from Brown University. She is the author of two books, The Latin American Literary Boom and U.S. Nationalism during the Cold War and History and Memory in the Two Souths: Recent Southern and Spanish American Fiction. Additionally, she has published numerous articles examining the intersections of Faulkner and Latin America.
The visiting scholars will present their work at panel sessions Friday, Oct. 12, and Saturday, Oct. 13.
The panel presentations from scholars are a chance for scholars to share their research with one another and tend to be more specialized, Rieger said.
In addition to these events, Literary Innovations: A Juried National Exhibition Inspired by William Faulkner and Gabriel Garca Mrquez is currently on display in the gallery at Southeasts Catapult Creative House, located at 612 Broadway in downtown Cape Girardeau.
The exhibition, organized in conjunction with the conference by faculty in Southeasts Department of Art and the Center for Faulkner Studies, focuses on the prolific and exciting writings of Faulkner and Garca Mrquez, who are both closely identified with literary modernism and known for creating densely woven plots. The exhibition includes a diverse body of work created by national and international artists. The exhibition is on display until Nov. 26.
Conference attendees will also be given a tour of the renowned L.D. Brodsky Collection of William Faulkner materials housed in Kent Library.
The Faulkner and Garca Mrquez Conference is the seventh conference in the biannual series organized by the Center for Faulkner Studies and held on the campus of Southeast Missouri State University.
For a complete list of conference events, visit the Center for Faulkner Studies website, www.semo.edu/cfs, or for more information, contact the Center at (573) 986-6155.