Material culture is at once the most solid
of our cultures and the most silent–the
one whose expressiveness as a cultural
voice is the easiest to miss, precisely
because we are so deeply embedded in it
as scarcely to recognize it as a created
construct reflecting desires, choices, social
attitudes, and moral values. The 31st
Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha
Conference— “Faulkner and Material
Culture”—focused on the materiality of
Faulkner’s fiction, its objects, ranging from
the furniture of Light in August to the
varieties of smoking material his
characters use, from the Courthouse in
Jefferson and the Confederate Soldier
Monument that stands in front of it to
Flem Snopes’s hat in The Mansion.

Much of the drama of Faulkner’s
fiction consists of the transformations
of material objects from their pure
functionality to a significance
independent of their practical use.
Lucas Beauchamp’s divining machine
in “The Fire and the Hearth” achieves
a value beyond its aim of recovering
buried wealth; a table in Light in August
becomes a vehicle of violence; the odor
of an old man in The Reivers symbolizes
the ethos of an entire culture; detritus
becomes treasure.

Speakers appearing for the first time
at the conference were Charles Aiken,
Katherine R. Henninger, T. J. Jackson
Lears, Miles Orvell, and Matthew
Ramsey; returning speakers included
Kevin Railey, Jay Watson, and Patricia
Yaeger. Also appearing—all for the first
time—were nine panelists: Ted
Atkinson, Jeffrey Carroll, Brannon
Costello, Barbara Ensrud, Brandon
Kempner, Jennifer Middlesworth, Eileen
O’Brien, Sharon Desmond Paradiso,
and Caleb Smith. An anonymous gift in
honor of Joseph Blotner, Faulkner
biographer and longtime friend of Ole
Miss and the conference, provided
support for the panelists who
participated in the 2004 program.

In addition to the formal
presentations, John Maxwell performed
his acclaimed monologue “Oh, Mr.
Faulkner, Do You Write?,” and the
singer/songwriter group Reckon Crew
performed its adaptation of Faulkner’s
As I Lay Dying. David Sheffield read his
winning entry in the Faux Faulkner
Contest, “As I Lay Kvetching,” Seth
Berner, a book dealer from Portland,
Maine, conducted a session titled
“Collecting Faulkner,”and Colby
Kullman moderated “Faulkner on the
Fringe” at the Southside Gallery. A
highlight of the conference continued
to be the “Teaching Faulkner” sessions,
conducted this year by James B.
Carothers, Terrell L. Tebbetts, Theresa
Towner, and Charles A. Peek.

Other events included a presentation
of “The William Faulkner Exhibition
and Museum Design Proposal”; two
photography exhibitions, one by Bruce
Newman, and another by Jane Rule
Burdine; guided tours of North
Mississippi; an opening buffet at
historic Memory House; and a closing
party at the home of Dr. and Mrs.
Beckett Howorth.

DONALD M. KARTIGANER

From left: Charles A. Peek, Theresa Towner, L. D. Brodsky, James B. Carothers, Terrell
L. Tebbetts

From left: James B. Carothers, Sharon Desmond Paradiso, Jennifer Middlesworth,
Barbara Ensrud, Donald M. Kartiganer