Sciuto invites scholarship “to advance in reparative directions, creating connections across time
and regional contexts and emphasizing both the future’s effect on the past, and the literary
margins’ impact on the centers – not simply the reverse” (62). Sciuto builds off the work of Wai
Chee Dimock who analyzes Faulkner’s sessions at the Nagano Seminar in Japan in 1955 as
“long distance atonement” during which he described “the humiliation of the South after the
Civil War in kinship with the humiliation of Japan after World War II” (591). Through drawing
this parallel, Faulkner reveals himself to be aware of transhistorical and transgeographical
connections between post-World War II Japan and post-Civil War Mississippi, but similarly
reveals the limits to his global awareness—which does not develop in a reciprocal manner.
Engaging with Japanese literature, such as writing by Kenzaburō Ōe who began publishing in the
late 1950s, or theory, such as the work of literary critic Hideo Kobayashi, would have advanced
Faulkner’s work in a more fully reparative direction.
This panel is interested in Faulkner’s global reach. We will explore the reciprocal
influences, confluences, and resonances connecting his work and life as a writer specifically to
the Asian continent. This includes his experiences in Japan and the Philippines as a cultural
ambassador for the state department, as well as connections between his work and the writing of
more contemporary novelists like Taiwanese writer Pai Hsien-yung, who helped establish the
literary period of Taiwanese Modernism, and fellow Nobel Prize winner, Chinese novelist Mo
Yan. Working within the Cold War context, Dr. Yuko Yamamoto will focus on Faulkner’s essay
“Mississippi” and its simultaneous appearances in the US, England, Japan, and Germany in
1955. Dr. Jenna Grace Sciuto investigates Faulkner’s visit to the Philippines in 1955 with an eye
to the United States colonial history there and the depiction of the Philippines in Sanctuary. Dr.
Pei-Wen Clio Kao will explore the queer themes in Faulkner's Light in August and a Pai Hsien-
yung';s Crystal Boys (1983) through the framework of the Global South and its cityscape, which
echoes marginalized gay cultures and identities. And finally, Dr. Mengyu Li will do a
comparative study of The Sound and the Fury and Mo Yan’s Big Breast and Wide Hips (1996)
from a sexual ethical approach.