“Faulkner in the 21st Century,” the theme of the 27th annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference (July 23-28, 2000), will explore what novelist Wright Morris once called “the territory ahead”: the possible changes in the way we read Faulkner, the new issues to be raised, the new contexts to be brought to bear--and, perhaps most provocative, the new Faulkner that may emerge, the Faulkner we may have missed and who is still waiting for us to catch up with him.

Among the scholars who will be speaking at the conference for the first time will be Deborah N. Cohn, of McGill University, author of History and Memory in the Two Souths: Recent Southern and Spanish American Fiction; Michael Kreyling, of Vanderbilt University, author of several books, including Figures of the Hero in Southern Narrative, Author and Agent: Eudora Welty and Diarmuid Russell, and, most recently, Inventing Southern Literature; Barbara Ladd, of Emory University, author of Nationalism and the Color Line in the Work of George W. Cable, Mark Twain, and William Faulkner; Walter Benn Michaels, of Johns Hopkins University, author of The Gold Standard and the Logic of Naturalism and Our America: Nativism, Modernism, and Pluralism; and Annette Trefzer, who has recently joined the Department of English at the University of Mississippi and is the editor of Reclaiming Native American Identities, as well as several essays on Zora Neale Hurston and Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings.

In addition, two scholars who will be returning to the conference are Robert Hamblin, of Southeast Missouri State University, coeditor of Faulkner: A Comprehensive Guide to the Brodsky Collection and coeditor of the recently published William Faulkner Encyclopedia; and Theresa Towner, of the University of Texas at Dallas, author of the forthcoming volume Faulkner on the Color Line: The Later Novels.

Other events at the conference will include discussions by Faulkner friends and family; dramatic readings from Faulkner’s works, and “Teaching Faulkner” sessions, led by James Carothers, University of Kansas, Robert Hamblin (who will also be presenting a paper), Arlie Herron, University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, and Charles Peek, University of Nebraska at Kearney. The University's John Davis Williams Library will display Faulkner books, manuscripts, photographs, and memorabilia, and the University Press of Mississippi will exhibit Faulkner books published by university presses throughout the United States. Films relating to the author's life and work will be available for viewing during the week.

The conference will begin on Sunday, July 23, with a reception at the University Museums for an exhibition of paintings entitled Lou Jordan: Virginia Gardens and Pathways. Following the reception will be a program during which the winners of the 11th Faux Faulkner Contest will be announced. Other events will include a Sunday buffet supper served at the home of Dr. and Mrs. M. B. Howorth Jr., a picnic served at Faulkner's home, Rowan Oak, on Wednesday, and a Thursday afternoon party at the Lewis home, built in 1859 by the founder of Neilson’s department store.

Among the registrants for the conference will be 30 high school teachers selected from five Southern states, who will receive full fellowships, to be awarded later this spring, funded by Saks Incorporated, on behalf of McRae’s, Proffitt’s, and Parisian department stores.

For more information about the conference contact the Institute for Continuing Studies, P.O. Box 879, The University of Mississippi, University, MS 38677-0879; telephone 662-915-7282; fax 662-915-5138, e-mail cstudies@olemiss.edu.