I am delighted to learn that I will be speaking at the 9th Faulkner Studies in the UK Colloquium which marks the 90th anniversary of the publication of Absalom, Absalom!
I will be talking on Thomas Sutpen, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, and Marxism.
Happy publication day!
Delighted to learn as the year closes that our excellent collection American Writers in Paris: Then and Now has been published by Palgrave and is available today for pre-order.
My essay in the collection is on Faulkner, Cézanne, and phenomenology.
Body, remember not only how much you were loved,
not only the beds you lay on,
but also those desires that glowed openly
in eyes that looked at you,
trembled for you in the voices—
—Constantine P. Cavafy
Thanks! Hope you get a chance to listen.
Political violence is a kind of rot that sets in when those values by which we live together as cultures and as people die off. Sad beyond telling to see it in such clear ascendancy.
Was very happy to write this review for The Faulkner Journal.
On the excellent edited collection Digitizing Faulkner: Yoknapatawpha in the Twenty-First Century.
Check out the mammoth, 5-hour discussion I had recently w/ Glen Rockney over at Rare Candy Podcast on Pynchon's Gravity's Rainbow!
So much fun. So much covered.
Links to parts 1, 2, and 3:
open.spotify.com/episode/6fet...
open.spotify.com/episode/4roY...
open.spotify.com/episode/4GvS...
It was my first day of my 13th year of teaching today.
Unlucky for some.
In just a few hours I'm starting my journey to Mississippi where I'll be speaking at the 51st annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference, 'Faulkner's Bodies'.
I've been looking forward to this one. There is so much to say about Faulkner, phenomenology, and the body.
Sometimes you just need to see the conference programme before you really start to get enthusiastic.
The thousand times that he had proved it meant nothing. Now he was proving it again. Each time was a new time and he never thought about the past when he was doing it.
—Ernest Hemingway
You have to inject yourself with fantasy every day so you don't die of reality.
—Ray Bradbury
On the last day of the world
I would want to plant a tree
—W. S. Merwin
An intellectual is a person who has discovered something more interesting than sex.
—Aldous Huxley
Me talking about Faulkner and Cézanne, in Boston last month. Courtesy of a friend of mine.
Good times!
Always a good night when you receive proofs from The Faulkner Journal.
Come, come.
Even if you have broken your vow.
Even a thousand times.
—Rumi
Please join us via Zoom on May 10th and May 11th, 2025, for the 8th Faulkner Studies in the UK Colloquium celebrating the 100th anniversary of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Faulkner's early writing.
I will be speaking on Faulkner and Merleau-Ponty.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/under-the-...
Art is not construction, artifice, meticulous relationship to a space and a world existing outside. It is truly the "inarticulate cry,” as Hermes Trismegistus said, "which seemed to be the voice of the light."
—Maurice Merleau-Ponty
Registration is now open for "Under the Red, White, and Blue: Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and America"!
Come along and celebrate the 100th anniversary of Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby, and listen to me chat about Faulkner and phenomenology.
www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/under-the-...
Any conference whatsoever (let alone the famous Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha!) that uses this image on their poster is okay in my book.
I think, judging by initial signs, we're all going to have a blast at the end of July!
I'm thrilled to learn that, in May, I'll be speaking at the 8th annual Faulkner Studies in the UK Colloquium "Under the Red, White, and Blue: Faulkner, Fitzgerald, and America"!
I will be talking about two of Faulkner's most memorable characters: Benjy Compson & Darl Bundren.
Wake up little butterfly—
it's late, we have miles
to go together.
—Matsuo Bashō
The secret of success seems to be that it doesn't matter where you are now; it matters where you are by tomorrow.
Sadly, this does not also seem to be the secret of contentment.
I am delighted to learn that I will be travelling to Mississippi in July to speak at 2025's Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha conference, "Faulkner's Bodies," on Merleau-Pontian embodiment and the truly outstanding novel Absalom, Absalom!
I can't wait!
A little silent prayer goes out to all those of you who write avidly and hard but who also have day jobs and find the writing magic only really ignites when it's already time to sleep for work.
May you be reincarnated as Marcel Proust.
Just daydreaming about your writing is part of the writing process.
In fact, everything that happens in your mind, life, and general vicinity is part of the writing process, rightly seen.
