Fossil-Fuel Faulkner - Energy, Modernity, and the Us South

The first critical study to apply the tools and insights of the energy humanities to the work of William Faulkner. The volume explores the imaginative, affective, social, and cultural impact of Faulkner's work in relation to southern energy history.

List of contents

• Introduction: The Fossil-Fuel Fa(u)lkners: Energy and Modernity in the US South


• 1: Faulkner in Modernity's Basement


• 2: Yoknapatawpha Road Trip; or, William Faulkner in Car Country


• Conclusion: An Energy Fabliau for the Future?


• Notes


• Works Cited

About the author

Jay Watson received his B.A. degree from the University of Georgia and his M.A. and PhD from Harvard University. He has taught at the University of Mississippi since 1989. In 2002 and 2003, he was Visiting Fulbright Professor of American Studies at two universities in Finland, the University of Turku, and Abo Akademi University. His books include Forensic Fictions: The Lawyer Figure in Faulkner (1993), Reading for the Body: The Recalcitrant Materiality of Southern Fiction, 1893-1985 (2012), William Faulkner and the Faces of Modernity (2019), and ten edited or co-edited volumes. He was president of the William Faulkner Society from 2009 to 2012.

Summary

The first critical study to apply the tools and insights of the energy humanities to the work of William Faulkner. The volume explores the imaginative, affective, social, and cultural impact of Faulkner's work in relation to southern energy history.

Additional text

Faulkner's work invites us to examine how a picture of the former held Southerners captive. Watson's book shows how a carbon-intensive energy regime now holds us captive, its allure so enchanting that we too easily confuse its destruction for the feeling of freedom.

Product details

• Authors: Jay Watson, Jay (Distinguished Professor of English an Watson, Watson Jay
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Languages: English
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 03.11.2022
• EAN: 9780192855619
• ISBN: 978-0-19-285561-9
• No. of pages: 268
• Subjects: Humanities, art, music > Linguistics and literary studies > General and comparative literary studies; Social sciences, law, business > Sociology > General, dictionaries; NATURE / Ecology, HISTORY / Americas (North, Central, South, West Indies), SOCIAL SCIENCE / Sociology / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, Social impact of environmental issues, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, History of the Americas, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form