2024 Conference Program

2024 is an anniversary year in Faulkner studies for many reasons: it marks the 100th anniversary of The Marble Faun, the author’s first book to see print publication; the 75th anniversary of Knight’s Gambit, his collection of mystery stories; the 50th anniversary of Joseph Blotner’s monumental biography of the author; and the 50th anniversary of the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference itself, the longest continuously running academic event devoted to the work of an American writer. These multiple milestones invite reflection not only about Faulkner’s career but about the career of Faulkner studies itself over the past half-century, at this conference and elsewhere across the profession. In addition to five keynote lectures, the conference program will include panel presentations, guided daylong tours of North Mississippi and the Delta, and our ever-popular sessions on “Teaching Faulkner.”

The conference will begin on Sunday, July 21, with a reception at the University Museum, after which the academic program of the conference will open with keynote addresses, followed by a buffet supper on the grounds of Faulkner’s home, Rowan Oak.

Over the next four days, a busy schedule of lectures and panels will also make room for teaching sessions, an afternoon cocktail reception, a picnic served at Rowan Oak, guided tours, and a closing party on Thursday afternoon, July 25. Throughout the conference, the University’s J. D. Williams Library will display Faulkner books, manuscripts, photographs, and memorabilia. The University Press of Mississippi will exhibit Faulkner books and titles of related interest published by university presses throughout the United States, and Faulkner collector Seth Berner will give a brown bag lunch presentation on “Collecting Faulkner.”

All registrants, whether they are teachers or not, are welcome at these sessions.

Keynote Speakers

Aliyyah Abdur-Rahman is associate professor of American studies and English at Brown University. She is author of Millennial Style: The Politics of Experiment in Contemporary African Diasporic Culture (2024) and Against the Closet: Black Political Longing and the Erotics of Race (2012), as well as guest editor of the Faulkner Journal special issue on race, racism, and the work of antiracism (2023) and coeditor of the forthcoming African American Literature in Transition: The 1950s. Her essays on Faulkner have appeared in the Faulkner and Whiteness (2011) and New Cambridge Companion to William Faulkner (2015) collections, as well as in the Faulkner Journal.

Catherine Gunther Kodat is professor of English at Marist College, where she also serves as provost and dean of the faculty. She is the author of Don’t Act, Just Dance: The Metapolitics of Cold War Culture (2015) and Faulknerista  (2022), and her essays on Faulkner have been published in American Literary History, the Faulkner Journal, and edited collections including The New Faulkner Studies, Faulkner in the Media Ecology, William Faulkner in Context, Faulkner’s Sexualities, The Cambridge Companion to the Modernist Novel, A Companion to William Faulkner, Faulkner in America, and Unflinching Gaze: Morrison and Faulkner Re-Envisioned. She has served as representative-at-large (2018–21) and secretary/treasurer (2003–2006) to the William Faulkner Society.

Trudier Harris is University Distinguished Research Professor of English emerita at the University Alabama and the J. Carlyle Sitterson Distinguished Professor of English emerita at the University of North Carolina. A 2018 recipient of the Richard Beale Davis Award for lifetime achievement in southern literary studies, she is author of twelve published or forthcoming books, including Martin Luther King Jr., Heroism, and African American Literature (2014), The Scary Mason-Dixon Line: African American Writers and the South (2009), and The Power of the Porch: The Storyteller’s Craft in Zora Neale Hurston, Gloria Naylor, and Randall Kenan (1996).

Among her many coedited volumes are Call and Response: The Riverside Anthology of the African American Literary Tradition (1997) and the Norton anthology of The Literature of the American South (1998).

Claude Romano is associate professor of philosophy at the University of Paris-Sorbonne. He is the author or editor of nearly two dozen books, including Le Chant de la vie: Phénoménologie de Faulkner [The Song of Life: Phenomenology of Faulkner] (2005), and his essays on Faulkner have been published in Esprit and Cycnos: Études anglophones. A former holder of the Perelman Chair at the Free University of Brussels (2021–22) and the Gadamer Chair at Boston College (2019–20), he has also held visiting professorships in Italy, Chile, Portugal, Lebanon, Australia, and the US. In 2020 he was awarded the Grand Prix de Philosophy from the French Academy.

Koichi Suwabe is associate professor in the Graduate School of Humanities and Sociology at the University of Tokyo. His publications include William Faulkner’s Poetics: 1930–1936 (2008), which received the Shimizu Hiroshi award from the Japanese Association for American Studies, along with monographs on the American novel, noir fiction, Raymond Chandler, and Kurt Vonnegut, and edited collections including Faulkner and Japanese Literature (2019) and An Introduction to American Literature, now in its second edition (2023). He is also the translator for recent Japanese editions of Flags in the Dust (2021) and Light in August (2016).

Additional speakers and panelists will be selected from the call for papers competition.

2024 Conference Schedule

  • Walk-up onsite conference registration opens Sunday, July 21, 2024, at 11:00 a.m. at Nutt Auditorium.
  • A reception at the University Museum is set for 11:30 a.m., followed by the first keynote speaker at 1:00 p.m.
  • The conference will conclude with the closing party scheduled for the afternoon of Thursday, July 25.
  • A detailed program will be provided with the conference registration packet.

Optional Tours - Thursday, July 25

In-person attendees will be given an opportunity to spend a day touring one of the areas listed below. All tours depart from Oxford at 9:00 a.m. and return around 3:30 p.m. except where noted. The tours are optional and are available for an additional fee of $120, which includes lunch.

Oxford/Lafayette County: This tour, led by Jay Watson, moves throughout Oxford/Jefferson and Lafayette/Yoknapatawpha County to visit a number of homes, buildings, and other sites associated with Faulkner’s life and writings. Some walking is required.

The Mississippi Delta: This tour, led by Scott Barretta, consists of a circuitous drive to Clarksdale by way of Charleston, Sumner, and Tutwiler. The tour focuses not only on the hunting camps of Faulkner’s fiction but also on the music of the Delta, the Mississippi blues. The Delta Blues Museum in Clarksdale is the centerpiece of our visit there. After lunch, we wind our way back to Oxford and usually return between 4:30 and 5:00 p.m.

African American Heritage in Lafayette County: Led by Rhondalyn Peairs, this tour visits significant sites in the African American histories of Oxford and Lafayette County.

2024 Registration Fees & Information

In-Person

The registration fee for in-person conference attendance is $150 for students and $300 for other participants. The fee includes admission to all program events, a buffet supper on Sunday, lunch on Monday, a picnic at Rowan Oak on Wednesday, conference session refreshments, and a closing reception on Thursday. The fee does not cover lodging, the optional guided tours of Faulkner Country, or meals, except for those previously mentioned.

Zoom

For international scholars, instructors, students, and other Faulkner lovers unable to attend in person, there is also a remote option that will allow you to attend conference sessions online via Zoom.  Registration for the remote option is $50 for students and $100 for other participants and does not include social events.

Register

Student Group Discount Package.

A registration discount is offered for student groups of five or more attending the conference. The package includes a reduced conference registration fee of $100 for all student members; the designated group leader will receive a complimentary registration. Accommodations, travel, and meals (other than those covered by the conference registration fee) are the responsibility of the individual. To initiate a group registration, please contact Mary Leach at pdlljac@olemiss.edu or 662-915-7847.

A limited number of registration-fee waivers are available for graduate students who are not presenting work at the conference but are interested in attending. Contact Jay Watson, director, at jwatson@olemiss.edu for details.

Refunds. A refund will be made, less a $20 service charge per registration, for conference registrants who cancel their plans by July 11. No refunds will be made after that date. To initiate a cancellation request, please contact Mary Leach at  pdlljac@olemiss.edu or 662-915-7847.

Registration Instructions

Should you have any questions or encounter any issues during the registration process, please contact Mary Leach at 662-915-7847 or pdlljac@olemiss.edu0

  • Commemorative posters and t-shirts can be ordered separately or as an add-on to your registration.
  • Only one participant can register at a time.
  • Please have your credit card available when you begin the registration process. You will pay at the end of the registration process.
  • We only accept Visa and Mastercard credit card payments.

Register

Conference Details

ACCOMMODATING SPECIAL NEEDS

If you require assistance relating to a disability or have special dietary requirements, please contact Mary Leach at pdlljac@olemiss.edu or 662-915-7847 at least fourteen days prior to the conference.

LODGING

On-campus lodging is available at the Inn at Ole Miss, which offers special conference rates. Lodging in and near Oxford is available at hotels and other facilities. Conference participants should make their own reservations. Visit this page for more information about local lodging options.

Please note that on-campus housing in University of Mississippi Contemporary Halls will not be available for the conference dates.

TRANSPORTATION

Those who plan to fly to the conference should book their flights to and from Memphis (Tennessee) International Airport (MEM). From Thursday, July 18, to Sunday, July 28, the Division of Outreach offers a shuttle service for conference participants who arrive at the Memphis International Airport (approximately 75 miles or 1 hour and 15 minutes drive).

The cost of the shuttle is $145 round trip or $95 one way. Shuttle reservations must be made and paid for at least seven business days in advance.

If you would like to use the Division of Outreach shuttle service, please contact the Transportation Office, Division of Outreach and Continuing Education, via email at shuttle@olemiss.edu no later than July 8, 2024, to make your reservation. Your email must include the following information:

  • Subject line: Faulkner Conference
  • Name of Passenger(s)
  • Flight date(s)
  • Flight number(s)
  • Flight arrival/departure time(s)
  • Passenger’s cell phone #
  • Passenger’s email
  • Location at which to be dropped off or picked up in Oxford

Shuttles will be confirmed via email by Tuesday, July 16. Please meet your shuttle driver inside the airport at Baggage Claim, Area B escalator.

Memphis Shuttle Departures

Schedule your flight arrival 30–40 minutes (or more) before these shuttle departure times from Memphis.

Shuttle leaves the airport:
10:00 a.m.
2:00 p.m.
6:00 p.m.

Oxford Shuttle Departures

Schedule your flight departure three hours (or more) after these shuttle departure times from Oxford.

Shuttle leaves the Inn at Ole Miss:
8:00 a.m.
Noon
4:00 p.m.

N.B. Times listed above are subject to change after July 16.

Should your arriving flight be delayed, please call the Transportation After Hours phone at 662-816-7165 and if necessary, leave a voicemail message with your name and new arrival time. If you are unable to meet the next shuttle(s) you will be required either to stay over in Memphis and take the 10:00 a.m. shuttle the next day, if available, or to rent a car.

Faulkner Posters

Flat copies of Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference posters with illustrations are available for $5 each plus tax, shipping, and handling. To order posters, please email pdlljac@olemiss.edu with the quantity and poster(s) you are interested in purchasing.

Special Thanks

The 2024 Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference poster is produced through the generous support of the City of Oxford and the Oxford Convention & Visitors Bureau.

The conference organizers are grateful to all the individuals and organizations that support Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha annually, and they offer special thanks this year to the College of Liberal Arts, the Department of English, the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, University of Mississippi Libraries, University Museums, the City of Oxford, and the Oxford Convention and Visitors Bureau.

Oxford Visitors Center

For tourist information, kindly go to Visit Oxford.

Contact Information

For more information concerning the conference, contact:
Division of Outreach and Continuing Education
Office of Professional Development and Lifelong Learning
P.O. Box 1848 • The University of Mississippi
University, MS 38677
Telephone 662-915-7283
Fax 662-915-5138