The Ninth Faulkner Studies in the UK Colloquium

The Dark House: Absalom, Absalom! at 90

 

May 2^nd and 3^rd, 2026

Online via Zoom

 

With keynote addresses by:

Professor Mary M. Burke

(author of Race, Politics, and Irish America: A Gothic History [Oxford UP, 2022])

and

Dr John Michael Corrigan

(author of Faulkner’s Cartographies of Consciousness [Cambridge UP, 2023])

“I think it’s the best novel yet written by an American” (William Faulkner, on Absalom, Absalom!).

2026 marks 90 years since the publication of William Faulkner’s masterwork, Absalom, Absalom! (1936). Widely considered the greatest Southern novel of all time and among the most influential literary works of the twentieth century, the nineth Faulkner Studies in the UK colloquium celebrates Absalom, Absalom!’s incalculable influence upon global literature.

We welcome submissions on any aspect of Absalom, Absalom!, including (but in no way limited to) the following:

• Comparative approaches
• Absalom, Absalom!’s position in the broader context of Faulkner’s life and work
• Questions of American identity, including the clash between the urban and rural, North and South, the wealthy elite and the working class
• Race, emancipation, and the aftershocks of enslavement
• Sexuality, gender, and queering the novel
• Narration, storytelling, mythology, and hagiography
• “Sutpen’s Design” and dreams, plans, ambitions, money, and greed
• The nature of tragedy, fate, and predestination
• Faulkner’s indebtedness to and influence upon the transatlantic Gothic
• Teaching and/or editing Absalom, Absalom! and Faulkner’s work
• Canonicity, legacy, reputation, and the “dead, white male author” debate

Participants interested in presenting an individual paper should submit a max. 300-word abstract for a 15/20-minute presentation. Participants seeking to assemble a full-panel for a 60-minute session should include a one-page overview of the panel and max. 300-word abstracts for each of the panel papers to be included. Please submit your abstracts to the event organiser, Dr Ahmed Honeini, at ahmed.honeini@rhul.ac.uk by  March 30^th, 2026. Successful applicants will be informed of their acceptance by April 6^th, 2026.

The Faulkner Studies in the UK Research Network is dedicated to soliciting papers from scholars who reflect the diversity of Faulkner Studies in terms of gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, institutional affiliation, and locality. We aim to include a mix of participants from across the career spectrum (from under- and post-graduate students to full professors). All are welcome to apply. Follow us on Twitter: @Faulkner_UK.