Faulkner in the Twenty-First Century

by Robert W. Hamblin (Editor), Ann J. Abadie (Editor)

Overview

Where will the study of William Faulkner's writings take scholars in the new century? What critical roads remain unexplored? sFaulkner in the Twenty-First Century presents the thoughts of ten noted Faulkner scholars who spoke at the twenty-seventh annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference at the University of Mississippi. Theresa M. Towner attacks the traditional classification of Faulkner's works as "major" and "minor" and argues that this causes the neglect of other significant works and characters. Michael Kreyling uses photographs of Faulkner to analyze the interrelationships of Faulkner's texts with the politics and culture of Mississippi.

Barbara Ladd and Deborah N. Cohn invoke the relevance of Faulkner's works to "the other South," postcolonial Latin America. Also approaching Faulkner from a postcolonial perspective, Annette Trefzer looks at his contradictory treatment of Native Americans. Within the tragic fates of such characters as Quentin Compson, Gail Hightower, and Rosa Coldfield, Leigh Anne Duck finds an inability to cope with painful memories. Patrick O'Donnell examines the use of the future tense and Faulkner's growing skepticism of history as a linear progression. To postmodern critics who denigrate "The Fire and the Hearth," Karl F. Zender offers a rebuttal. Walter Benn Michaels contends that in Faulkner's South, and indeed the United States as a whole, the question of racial identification tends to overpower all other issues. Faulkner's recurring interest in frontier life and values inspires Robert W. Hamblin's piece. Taken as a whole, the essays in Faulkner in the Twenty-First Century offer strong evidence that Faulkner's works are likely to continue engaging the serious attention of readers and scholars.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781604730425
Publisher:	University Press of Mississippi
Publication date:	09/18/2009
Series:	Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Series
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	200
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Robert W. Hamblin, Cape Girardeau, Missouri, is professor emeritus of English and founding director of the Center for Faulkner Studies at Southeast Missouri State University. He has authored or edited nineteen books on Faulkner, including A William Faulkner Encyclopedia; Myself and the World: A Biography of William Faulkner; and My Life with Faulkner and Brodsky.


Ann J. Abadie, Oxford, Mississippi, is former associate director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture at the University of Mississippi and coeditor of numerous scholarly collections from the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	ix
	A Note on the Conference	xvii
	Opening Remarks	xix
	The Roster, the Chronicle, and the Critic	1
	Faulkner in the Twenty-First Century: Boundaries of Meaning, Boundaries of Mississippi	14
	William Faulkner, Edouard Glissant, and a Creole Poetics of History and Body in Absalom, Absalom! and A Fable	31
	Faulkner and Spanish America: Then and Now	50
	Postcolonial Displacements in Faulkner's Indian Stories of the 1930s	68
	Haunting Yoknapatawpha: Faulkner and Traumatic Memory	89
	Faulkner's Future Tense: A Critique of the Instant and the Continuum	107
	Lucas Beauchamp's Choices	119
	Absalom, Absalom!: The Difference between White Men and White Men	137
	Beyond the Edge of the Map: Faulkner, Turner, and the Frontier Line	154
	Contributors	172
	Index	175