William Faulkner in Context Literature in Context Series

William Faulkner in Context explores the environment that conditioned Faulkner's creative work. This book provides a broad and authoritative framework that will help readers to better understand this widely read yet challenging writer. Each essay offers a critical assessment of Faulkner's work as it relates to such topics as genre, reception, and the significance of place. Although Faulkner dwelt in his native Mississippi throughout his life, his visits to cities like New Orleans, Paris, and Los Angeles profoundly shaped his early career. Inextricable from the dramatic upheavals of the twentieth century, Faulkner's writing was deeply affected by the Great War, the Great Depression, World War II, and the civil rights movement. In this volume, a host of renowned scholars shed light on this enigmatic writer and render him accessible to students and researchers alike.

1. 'Born there': Faulkner, Oxford, and Lafayette County Philip Weinstein; 2. Primeval, goddam, and beyond: on Mississippi Robert Jackson; 3. A gulf society Matthew Pratt Guterl; 4. William Faulkner's Caribbean poetics Valérie Loichot; 5. What was Africa to Faulkner? Keith Cartwright; 6. Cosmopolitan culture: from New Orleans to Paris Taylor Hagood; 7. The Hollywood challenge James D. Bloom; 8. Topologies of discourse in Faulkner Charles Hannon; 9. 'It' and 'ole' in 1930: the structural economy of Faulkner's complex words Richard Godden; 10. Modern sexuality Kristin Fujie; 11. The cage of gender John T. Matthews; 12. The world of Jim Crow Leigh Anne Duck; 13. South to the world: William Faulkner and the American century Harilaos Stecopoulos; 14. Unsteady state: Faulkner and the Cold War Catherine Gunther Kodat; 15. 'Truth so mazed': Faulkner and US plantation fiction Peter Schmidt; 16. Faulkner and the modernist novel Jacques Pothier; 17. Faulkner goes to Hollywood Sarah Gleeson-White; 18. Reading William Faulkner after the civil rights era Barbara Ladd; 19. Writing past trauma: Faulkner and the Gothic Lisa Hinrichsen; 20. Faulkner and the paperback trade David M. Earle; 21. Writing after Faulkner: Faulkner and contemporary US fiction Jay Watson; 22. Reading Faulkner: empathy, distance, and Tehran Michael Kreyling; 23. Faulkner and Latin America: Latin America in Faulkner Emron Esplin; 24. William Faulkner and Japan Takako Tanaka; 25. Faulkner as/and the postcolonial writer Hosam Aboul-Ela; 26. Translating Faulkner: can a translator be androgynous? Ikuko Fujihira.

John T. Matthews is Professor of English at Boston University. His previous books include The Play of Faulkner's Language, 'The Sound and the Fury': Faulkner and the Lost Cause, and William Faulkner: Seeing Through the South. Matthews's articles on Faulkner and southern literature have appeared in such journals as Texas Studies in Language and Literature, American Literature, American Literary History, and Philological Quarterly.