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As much as the fictional character closest
to him-Quentin Compson-William Faulkner
was "an empty hall echoing with sonorous
defeated names . . . a commonwealth . .
. a barracks filled with stubborn back-looking
ghosts." The names and ghosts, of course,
were not just those of the Old South and
the war fought on its behalf, but the world
that grew up in the wake of their passing:
a New South still harboring some of the
values of the Old, a Falkner family history
fostering comparably divided loyalties,
a Modernist revolution in thought and art
prepared to challenge all loyalties, North
and South.
The 32nd annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha
Conference will attempt to take the measure
of Faulkner's "inheritance": the
varied elements that went into his making
and the making of his work. Obviously the
range is great. What events of north Mississippi
and Southern history, what aspects of the
personal life, what ideas in the intellectual
ferment of Modernism figure most strikingly
in the fiction he wrote? What do we as readers
most need to know of the world Faulkner
inhabited--political, social, cultural-in
order to best understand that fiction? How
does "inheritance," as a theme,
function in his fiction?
In commenting once on his work, he spoke,
uncharacteristically, of "the amazing
gift I had," and wondered "where
it came from . . . why God or gods or whoever
it was, selected me to be the vessel."
The aim of this conference will be to explore,
in somewhat more mundane terms, "where
it came from" and what-given that "amazing
gift"-Faulkner made out of what he
was given.
We are inviting both 50 minute plenary
addresses and 20-minute papers for this
conference. Plenary papers consist of approximately
6,000 words and will be published by the
University Press of Mississippi. Conference
papers
consist of approximately 2,500 words
and will be delivered at panel sessions.
For plenary papers the 15th edition of
the University of Chicago Manual of
Style should be used as a guide in preparing
manuscripts. Three copies of manuscripts
must be submitted
by January 15, 2005. Notification of selection
will be made by March 1, 2005. Authors
whose
papers are selected for presentation at
the conference and publication will receive
(1) a waiver of the conference registration
fee and (2) lodging at the University
Alumni House from Saturday,
July 23, through Thursday, July 28.
For short papers, three copies of two?page
abstracts must be submitted by January 15,
2005. Notification will be made by March
1, 2005. Authors whose papers are selected
for panel
presentation will receive a waiver of the
$275 conference registration fee.
All manuscripts and inquiries should be
addressed to Donald Kartiganer, Department
of English, The University of Mississippi,
University, MS 38677. Telephone: 662?915?5793,
e?mail:
dkartiga@olemiss.edu. Panel abstracts may
be sent by e?mail attachment; plenary manuscripts
should be sent only by conventional mail.
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The official
poster of the 2004 Faulkner
and Yoknapatawpha Conference
is illustrated with a photograph
of the dynamo at the University
of Mississippi Power Plant,
where William Faulkner worked
on the night shift in the fall
of 1929. Between October 25
and December 11, beginning at
midnight, when the need for
heat declined, he wrote As
I Lay Dying: "I had
invented a table out of a wheelbarrow
in the coal bunker, just beyond
a wall from where a dynamo
ran.
It made a deep, constant humming
noise."
Flat
posters, suitable for framing,
are available for $10.00 each
plus $2.50 postage and handling.
Mississippi residents add 7
percent sales tax. Send all
orders to the Center for the
Study of Southern Culture with
a check made payable to the
University of Mississippi or
with a Visa or MasterCard account
number and expiration date.
Credit card orders also may
be made by calling 800-390-3527.
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Oral History Conference
On Saturday, January 22, the Center
and the Ole Miss Office of Outreach
will offer teachers, genealogists, both
seasoned and beginning historians, and
others a workshop on creating and using
oral histories. Participants of Telling
the South's Stories: A Conference on
Oral Histories will hear from experienced
oral historians and learn how to conduct,
present, and preserve oral accounts,
as well as how to make oral histories
a part of the classroom experience.
Telling the South's Stories is set
for 8:00 a.m. until 5:15 p.m. in Barnard
Observatory. The registration fee is
$50 and includes CEU credit. For more
information, including a complete schedule
of events, visit www.outreach.olemiss.edu/culture/oral_history/.
Jennifer Southall
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