The next Faulkner Studies in the UK colloquium, celebrating 90 years of Absalom, Absalom!, will take place on May 2ndā3rd, 2026, online via Zoom. Please find the programme below. With keynote speakers Professor Mary Burke (University of Connecticut) and Dr John Michael Corrigan (National Chengchi University), along with contributions from scholars around the world, the conference promises to be one of our best events yet.
We very much hope youāll be able to join us. If you would like to attend, you can register via this Eventbrite link (which also includes the full schedule) by offering a donation of your choice: If youāre able to, we would also be grateful if you could share the schedule and registration details with colleagues, students, and friends who might be interested in attending.
As with our previous events, the conference is independently run, and while it is affiliated with the Ā鶹AV and Royal Holloway, it does not receive direct financial support from these institutions. Donations help us to cover costs and support future events, and we are grateful for any support you are able to offer.
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PROGRAMME
ALL timings below are according to BRITISH SUMMER TIME (BST), the standard time in the UK during May. Please may all presenters and attendees ensure the times below correspond to their local time zones to avoid unnecessary delays and potential inconvenience.
Day I, Saturday May 2nd, 2026
9:00ā10:20 ā PANEL 1: āTHE DARK HOUSE AND BEYOND: SPACE, FORM, AND ENVIRONMENTAL EXPERIENCE IN ABSALOM, ABSALOM!ā
Khawla Bendjemil, āThe Decaying Landscape as Narrative of Slow Violence: Environmental Memory in Absalom, Absalom!ā
FranƧoise Buisson, āāThe lost irrevocable might-have-been which haunts all housesā: Inchoateness and Chaotic Completion in Absalom, Absalom!ā
Mattias Pirholt, āEntangled Elements in Faulknerās Absalom, Absalom!ā
10:20ā11:40 ā PANEL 2: āCONSUMING THE SOUTH: NARRATIVE PLAY, PERFORMANCE, AND EVERYDAY POETICS IN ABSALOM, ABSALOM!”
Mourad Romdhani, āRise and Fall: Foodways Poetics in William Faulknerās Absalom, Absalom! and The Sound and the Furyā
James Stannard, āāItās Something my People Havenāt Gotā ā Shreve McCannon as 21st Century Readerā
Laura Wilson, āāLet Me Play a While Nowā: How the South Performs for Shreve McCannon in Absalom, Absalom!ā
11:40ā12:40 ā LUNCH
12:40ā14:00 ā PANEL 3: āFROM LA MANCHA TO YOKNAPATAWPHA AND BEYOND: THE LATIN ROUTES OF ABSALOM, ABSALOM!ā
Ruben Paredes, āSome Quixotic Aspects of Absalom, Absalom!ā
Elena Dobre, āSpanish Devotion: The Case of Absalom, Absalom! and its Spanish Receptionā
Duncan Chesney, āA(nother) Mexican Faulknerian: Fernanda Melchorā
14:00ā14:20 ā BREAK
14:20ā15:20 ā KEYNOTE: MARY BURKE
āāA Dark Houseā and a āBig Houseā? Absalom, Absalom! and the Atlantic Worldā
15:20ā15:40 ā BREAK
15:40ā17:00 ā PANEL 4: āOUT OF JOINT: TIME, HISTORY, AND REWRITING IN AND BEYOND ABSALOM, ABSALOM!ā
Tessa Roynon, āAncient Roman Presences in Absalom, Absalom!ā
Alex Miller, āFaulkner, Pontecorvo, and Inconsistent Impositionā
Stephanie Suchet, āWilliam Faulknerās Absalom, Absalom! and Richard Fordās Frank Bascombe Novels: A Deterritorializing Interplayā
17:00ā18:20 ā PANEL 5: āSENSING NARRATIVE: SOUND, VISION, AND CONSCIOUSNESS IN FAULKNERāS FICTIONā
Gabriele Salciute Civiliene, Marcel Karnapke, and Leslie Deere, āListening to the Klojimas: Sound, Translation, and Narrative Reconstruction in Faulkner’s South and Lithuanian Cultural Memoryā
Randall Wilhelm, āāIām Looking for Sutpenā: Pictorial Saturation and the Problem of Hypotyposis in Faulknerās Absalom, Absalom!ā
Kaiyue Hou, āA Reader’s Guide to Benjy’s Neurodivergent Consciousnessā
Day II, Sunday May 3rd, 2026
10:30ā11:50 ā PANEL 6: āDESIGNS AND FAILURES: NARRATIVE, POWER, AND THE MAKING OF HISTORY IN ABSALOM, ABSALOM!”
Beatrice Melodia Festa, āUnreliable Bodies, Unreadable Histories: Illness as Narrative Form in Absalom, Absalom!ā
Nguyen Viet Hoang, āPetty vs. Grand Ambition: The Sins of the Fathers in As I Lay Dying and Absalom, Absalom!ā
Jonathan Hayes, āFrom Vautrin to āSutpenās Designā: Reading Absalom, Absalom! Against the Historical Novelā
11:50ā13:10 ā PANEL 7: āRACE AS STRUCTURE: HISTORY, POWER, AND THE LIMITS OF SOUTHERN NARRATIVEā
Bernard T. Joy, āBetween Objective and Subjective Being: The Failed Revolutionary Politics of Thomas Sutpenā
Jein Kim, āScenes of Kinship in Genealogy Making: A Black Feminist Reading of Absalom, Absalom!ā
Carl Rollyson, āCharles Bon and Barack Obama: How a White Novelist Prepared the World for a Black Presidentā
13:10ā14:00 ā LUNCH
14:00ā15:00 ā KEYNOTE: JOHN MICHAEL CORRIGAN
āāIn the Empty Air Between Usā: Immanence, Ideology, and Information Flow in Faulknerās Absalom, Absalom!ā
15:00ā15:20 ā BREAK
15:20ā16:40 ā PANEL 8: āEMBODYING THE GOTHIC: MONSTROSITY, BREATH, AND RACIAL MEMORY IN FAULKNERāS SOUTHā
Ren Denton, āNarrative Authority and Feminized Monstrosity: The Telling and Retelling of Vampiric Memory in Faulknerās Gothic Southā
Lisa Hinrichsen, āAtmosphere, Aspiration, and the āHeritage of Breathingā in Absalom, Absalom!ā
Alice Condry-Power, āAbsalom, Absalom! as an Appalachian Gothicā
16:40ā18:00 ā PANEL 9 (CLOSING PANEL): āPASSING, DESIRE, AND VIOLENCE: QUEER LIVES IN ABSALOM, ABSALOM!ā
Madison Willis, āIn Memoriam: Queering the Memory of the South in Faulknerās Absalom, Absalom!ā
Emily Shaw, āConform or Die: Heteronormative Passing in Absalom, Absalom!ā
Phillip āPipā Gordon, āThomas Sutpen, Heterosexual: A Failed Readingā
ANNOUNCEMENT AND END OF CONFERENCE
The Zoom links and passwords will be sent to all attendees by Friday May 1st, 2026.
