The Faulkner Society

The Faulkner Society
Name	The Faulkner Society
Formation	1978
Type	Literary society
Headquarters	Oxford, England
Region served	International
Leader title	President

The Faulkner Society is an international literary society dedicated to the study and promotion of William Faulkner and related Southern literature, comparative modernist studies, and transatlantic cultural exchange. Founded in 1978, the Society links academics, writers, librarians, archivists, and readers through conferences, journals, digital archives, and awards, fostering scholarship that connects Faulkner to a wide network of authors, institutions, and cultural events.

History

The Society was established in 1978 by a group of scholars influenced by the work of William Faulkner, Cleanth Brooks, John Crowe Ransom, Randolph B. Campbell and the emerging New Criticism movements centered at University of Virginia, University of Mississippi, and Yale University. Early conferences featured papers on Faulkner in dialogue with T. S. Eliot, James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, Ernest Hemingway, and F. Scott Fitzgerald, with institutional partners including Oxford University, Columbia University, Harvard University, Duke University, and Emory University. During the 1980s and 1990s the Society expanded ties to archives such as the Library of Congress, the Huntington Library, the Harry Ransom Center, and the Folger Shakespeare Library, while fostering exchange with journals like The Sewanee Review, The Southern Review, PMLA, and Modern Language Quarterly. The Society’s work intersected with cultural initiatives at Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Yale Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Smithsonian Institution, National Endowment for the Humanities, and the British Library.

Mission and Activities

The Society’s mission emphasizes textual scholarship, manuscript studies, and interdisciplinary inquiry linking Faulkner to figures and events such as Eudora Welty, Flannery O'Connor, Toni Morrison, Langston Hughes, and W. E. B. Du Bois, and institutions including Rutgers University, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Princeton University, Brown University, and University of Chicago. Activities include international conferences, archival fellowships, collaborative projects with the Modern Language Association, partnerships with the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and public-facing programs in collaboration with museums such as the New Orleans Museum of Art and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. The Society sponsors research residencies at centers like Yaddo, MacDowell Colony, and Guggenheim Foundation-affiliated programs, and organizes seminars linked to festivals such as Hay Festival, BritFest, and the Cheltenham Literature Festival.

Membership and Organization

Membership comprises scholars, writers, librarians, students, and readers across universities and cultural institutions including University of Mississippi, Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press, Johns Hopkins University Press, University of California Press, and Rutgers University Press. Governance features an elected board with officers drawn from faculties at University of Virginia, Yale University, Duke University, Columbia University, Emory University, and representatives from archives such as the Huntington Library and Harry Ransom Center. Regional chapters operate in North America, Europe, and Australasia, with active nodes at University of Sydney, University of Melbourne, Trinity College Dublin, Sorbonne University, and University of Toronto. Advisory councils have included members affiliated with Pen America, National Council of Teachers of English, Modern Language Association, and the American Comparative Literature Association.

Publications and Programs

The Society publishes a peer-reviewed journal, an online newsletter, and edited volumes in collaboration with publishers such as Cambridge University Press, Oxford University Press, Routledge, Palgrave Macmillan, and Bloomsbury. Its journal has featured essays on Faulkner’s relation to Modernism, Realism, Southern Gothic, and comparative studies with Marcel Proust, Gabriel García Márquez, Italo Calvino, and Jorge Luis Borges, and bibliographic work referencing manuscripts held at University of Virginia Special Collections, University of Mississippi Libraries, and the Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Programming includes graduate workshops, digital humanities labs using tools from Stanford University and MIT, public lectures at venues such as British Library, New York Public Library, and collaborative MOOCs hosted with edX partners and university platforms like Coursera.

Notable Events and Conferences

Major conferences have convened at institutions including Oxford University, Yale University, Columbia University, University of Mississippi, University of Virginia, Duke University, Emory University, University of Chicago, and Harvard University, and have featured keynote speakers from Toni Morrison Trust events, representatives of the Pulitzer Prize committee, and leading scholars associated with PEN America and the Society for the Study of Southern Literature. Special symposia have explored Faulkner’s links to Civil Rights Movement figures, Harlem Renaissance writers, and international modernists such as Samuel Beckett, Paul Celan, Rainer Maria Rilke, and Anna Akhmatova. The Society has also organized public celebrations at Rowan Oak, the Faulkner House Books site, and city-wide programs in Oxford, Mississippi, New York City, London, Paris, and Sydney.

Awards and Recognition

The Society administers prizes for scholarship, including dissertation awards, book prizes, and essay competitions adjudicated by panels drawn from Modern Language Association, American Literature editors, and faculties at Princeton University, Yale University, Cambridge University, Oxford University, and Rutgers University. Recipients have included scholars affiliated with University of Virginia, Duke University, University of Mississippi, Emory University, Columbia University, and independent researchers associated with archives like the Harry Ransom Center and the Huntington Library. The Society’s awards have been recognized by funding bodies such as the National Endowment for the Humanities, Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Ford Foundation, and Guggenheim Foundation for promoting archival research, translation projects, and public humanities initiatives.

Category:Literary societies