Faulkner at 100

by Kartiganer, Donald M.

• ISBN13: 9781578062898
• ISBN10: 1578062896
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2000-10-01
• Publisher: Univ Pr of Mississippi

Summary

Essays in centennial celebration of William Faulkner and his achievementWith essays and commentaries by Andreacute; Bleikasten, Joseph Blotner, Larry Brown, Thadious M. Davis, Susan V. Donaldson, Doreen Fowler, The Reverend Duncan M. Gray, Jr., Minrose C. Gwin, Robert W. Hamblin, W. Kenneth Holditch, Lothar Houml;nnighausen, Richard Howorth, John T. Irwin, Donald M. Kartiganer, Robert C. Khayat, Arthur F. Kinney, Thomas L. McHaney, John T. Matthews, Michael Millgate, David Minter, Richard C. Moreland, Gail Mortimer, Albert Murray, Noel Polk, Carolyn Porter, Hans H. Skei, Judith L. Sensibar, Warwick Wadlington, Philip M. Weinstein, Judith Bryant Wittenberg, and Karl F. ZenderWilliam Faulkner was born September 25, 1897. In honor of his centenary the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference of 1997 brought together twenty-five of the most important Faulkner scholars to examine the achievement of this writer generally regarded as the finest American novelist of the twentieth century.The panel discussions and essays that make upFaulkner at 100: Retrospect and Prospectprovide a comprehensive account of the man and his work, including discussions of his life, the shape of his career, and his place in American literature, as well as fresh readings of such novels as TheSound and the Fury,Sanctuary,Absalom, Absalom!,If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem, andGo Down, Moses.Spanning the full range of critical approaches, the essays address such issues as Faulkner's use of African American dialect as a form of both appropriation and repudiation, his frequent emphasis on the strength of heterosexual desire over actual possession, the significance of his incessant role-playing, and the surprising scope of his reading. Of special interest are the views of Albert Murray, the African American novelist and cultural critic. He tells of reading Faulkner in the 1930s while a student at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama.What emerges from this commemorative volume is a plural Faulkner, a writer of different value and meaning to different readers, a writer still challenging readers to accommodate their highly varied approaches to what Andreacute; Bleikasten calls Faulkner's abiding "singularity."At the University of Mississippi Donald M. Kartiganer fills the William Howry Chair in Faulkner Studies in the department of English and Ann J. Abadie is associate director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture.

Table of Contents

Evans Harrington	xi
In Place of an Introduction: Reading Faulkner	xiii
Donald M. Kartiganer
A Note on the Conference	xxvii
A Note on the Faulkner Centennial	xxix
Some Brief Recollections of Then---for Now	1	(25)
Joseph Blotner
Who Was William Faulkner?
Growing Up in Faulkner's Shadow	6	(6)
W. Kenneth Holditch
Faulkner, the Role-Player	12	(6)
Lothar Honnighausen
Was Not Was not Who Since Philoprogenitive	18	(8)
Noel Polk
Defining Moment: The Portable Faulkner Revisited	26	(44)
Michael Millgate
Why Faulkner?
``A Sight-Draft Dated Yesterday'': Faulkner's Uninsured Immortality	45	(8)
Philip M. Weinstein
Faulkner's Playful Bestiary: Seeing Gender Through Ovidian Eyes	53	(7)
Gail Mortimer
Faulkner's Continuing Education: From Self-Reflection to Embarrassment	60	(10)
Richard C. Moreland
Whose America? Faulkner, Modernism, and national Identity	70	(50)
John T. Matthews
The Career of William Faulkner
``Faulkner before Faulkner'': The Early Career As a Construction in Retrospect	93	(7)
Hans H. Skei
Absalom, Absalom! and the Challenges of Career Design	100	(9)
Judith Bryant Wittenberg
Faulkner's Career: Concept and Practice	109	(11)
Karl F. Zender
Faulkner's Grim Sires	120	(45)
Carolyn Porter
Faulkner and America
Reading the Absences: Race and Narration in Faulkner's Absalom, Absalom!	132	(8)
Doreen Fowler
The Strange, Double-Edged Gift of Faulkner's Fiction	140	(14)
David Minter
Not the Having but the Wanting: Faulkner's Lost Loves	154	(11)
John T. Irwin
Race Cards: Trumping and Troping in Constructing Whiteness	165	(39)
Thadious M. Davis
Untapped Faulkner
What Faulkner Read at the P.O	180	(8)
Thomas L. McHaney
Faulkner and Love: The Question of Collaboration	188	(7)
Judith L. Sensibar
Faulkner's Other Others	195	(9)
Arthur F. Kinney
Faulkner in the Singular	204	(34)
Andre Bleikasten
Response
Whose Faulkner Is It Anyway?	219	(7)
Susan V. Donaldson
Whose Faulkner?	226	(5)
Minrose C. Gwin
A Response in Forbidden Words	231	(7)
Warwick Wadlington
Me and Old Uncle Billy and the American Mythosphere	238	(51)
Albert Murray
Coda
William Faulkner Centennial Celebration Program, the University of Mississippi	250	(35)
Welcome	253	(2)
Robert C. Khayat
A Eulogy for Faulkner	255	(6)
Duncan m. Gray Jr.
``He Was Writing''	261	(3)
Donald M. Kartiganer
For Literature, for Faulkner	264	(3)
Richard Howorth
A Tribute to William Faulkner	267	(5)
Larry Brown
``Like a Big Soft Fading Wheel'': The Triumph of Faulkner's Art	272	(13)
Robert W. Hamblin
Faulkner Centennial Celebrations	285	(4)
Contributors	289	(6)
Index	295