Ann J. Abadie

Donald M. Kartiganer

Although he belonged to an American generation of writers deeply influenced by the high modernist revolt "against nature" and against the self-imposed limits of realism to a palpable world, William Faulkner reveals throughout his work an abiding sensitivity to the natural world. He writes of the big woods, of animals, and of the human body as a ground of being that art and culture can neither transcend nor completely control. The eleven essays that make up this volume, including a paper written by the acclaimed novelist William Kennedy, explore the place of "the unbuilt world" in Faulkner's fiction. They give particular attention to the social, mythic, and economic significance of nature, to the complexity of racial identity, and to the inevitable clash of gender and sexuality. These essays were presented in 1996 as papers at the Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, held annually at the University of Mississippi. Included are the following: Lawrence Buell's "Faulkner and the Claims of the Natural World"; Thomas L. McHaney's "Oversexing the Natural World"; Theresa M. Towner's "Color, Race, and Identity in Faulkner's Fiction"; Jay Watson's "The Art of the Literal in "Light in August""; Mary Joanne Dondlinger's "The Matter of Race and Gender in Faulkner's "Light in August""; Louise Westling's "Sutpen's Marriage to the Dark Body of the Land"; Myra Jehlen's "Faulkner and the Unnatural"; Diane Roberts's "Eula, Linda, and the Death of Nature"; David H. Evans's "'The Bear' and the Incarnation of America"; Wiley C. Prewitt, Jr.'s "Hunting and Habitat in Yoknapatawpha"; and William Kennedy's "Learning from Faulkner: The Obituary of Fear." Donald M. Kartiganer, Howry Chair of Faulkner Studies in the Department of English, and Ann J. Abadie, Associate Director of the Center for the Study of Southern Culture, teach at the University of Mississippi.

Faulkner and the Natural World

Faulkner and gender

Characteristically, William Faulkner minimized his familiarity with the theories of psychology that were current during the years of his apprenticeship as a writer, especially those of Freud. Yet, Faulkner's works prove to be a trove for psychological study. These original papers from the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, held in 1991 at the University of Mississippi, vary widely in their approaches to recent psychological speculation about Faulkner's texts. In recent years psychological analysis of literature has shifted largely from investigation of a writer's life to a focus on the work itself. Whether applying the theories of Freud and Lacan, drawing upon theoretical work in women's studies and men's studies, or emphasizing the rigid determinacy of psychological pressure, the essays included in this collection show Faulkner's works to be unquestionably rich in psychological materials.

Faulkner and psychology

Essays in centennial celebration of William Faulkner and his achievement With essays and commentaries by André 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 Hönnighausen, 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. Zender William 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 up Faulkner at 100: Retrospect and Prospect provide 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 The Sound and the Fury, Sanctuary, Absalom, Absalom!, If I Forget Thee, Jerusalem, and Go 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 André 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.

Donald M. Kartiganer

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