Southeast Missouri State University will welcome Dr. Eric Gary Anderson as the keynote speaker for the international William Faulkner and Louise Erdrich Conference at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22 in the University Center Ballroom A.
Anderson, an associate professor of English at George Mason University, will present “Tangled Routes and Roots: Haunted Locations in the Fiction of Faulkner and Erdrich.” His keynote will examine connections between the works of the two award-winning American authors through the lens of place, haunting and literature.
Anderson is a scholar of Horror and Gothic studies, Native American and Indigenous studies, and Southern Studies. He has published more than 35 scholarly essays and co-edited Undead Souths: The Gothic and Beyond in Southern Literature. His research focuses on haunted peoples and places in 20th- and 21st-century Native and Indigenous literatures. He also contributed an essay on Faulkner and Indigenous Studies in The New William Faulkner Studies, published by Cambridge University Press in 2022.
The keynote is free and open to the public and is part of the three-day conference, taking place Oct. 22-24 at SEMO. Hosted by the University’s Center for Faulkner Studies and supported by grant funding from Missouri Humanities, the conference will bring scholars, teachers, students and members of the public together to explore the literary works and contributions of Faulkner and Erdrich.
Additional conference programming includes a documentary screening and an art exhibition inspired by the authors’ works. An exclusive screening of the 2026 documentary Faulkner: The Past Is Never Dead will take place at 3 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 22, in the University Center Redhawks Room. The film combines scenes created using Faulkner’s words, animated recreations of his literary world and drawings, and conversations with members of his family and leading scholars. A discussion with guest speakers Anita Modak-Truran, executive producer of Faulkner: The Past Is Never Dead, and Tyson Koenig, head of Special Collections and Archives, will follow the screening.
The exhibition, Temporality, will open at 5 p.m. Friday, Oct. 23, at the ARX Gallery on SEMO’s River Campus. Inspired by the works of Faulkner and Erdrich, it will showcase artwork in a variety of media by artists from across the country.
For more information about the Center for Faulkner Studies, visit semo.edu/faulkner-studies.