The Legacy of Cormac McCarthy
Fall 2024 Cormac McCarthy Society Conference
October 3-5, 2024, Knoxville, TN
DRAFT PROGRAM
Conference panels will take place in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, 401 West Summit Hill Drive. The opening reception on Thursday evening will be at The Square Room (4 Market Square), and Ron Rash's keynote on Friday evening will take place at the East Tennessee History Center. (These are all less than 10 minutes' walk from each other.) Coffee, snacks, and a conference lunch on Saturday will also be provided.
Thursday, October 3
12:00-12:15
President’s Welcome: Stacey Peebles, Centre College
12:15-1:45: Session One
Chair: Scott Yarbrough, Charleston Southern University
“Cormac McCarthy and Photography: Landscape as Residual Image,” Virginia Gerlero, IULM University in Milan
“Cormac McCarthy’s Submerged Science Fiction Novel,” Travis McDonald, Front Range Community College
“Gangs, Tribes, and Blood Cults: The Harvest and Exchange of Bodies in Blood Meridian and The Road,” Jordan Dominy, Auburn University at Montgomery
2:00-3:30: Session Two
Chair: Steven Frye, California State University, Bakersfield
“What a Long Strange (Road) Trip It’s Been,” Jamie Brummer, Christian Brothers High School
“One One Seven Tennessine,” Candy Minx, Independent Scholar
“’They Rode On’: An Exploration of Resonances Between Suttree, Blood Meridian, and the Border Trilogy,” Kelly James, Independent Scholar
“Cormac McCarthy and the Still Enduring Legacy of Old Southwest Humor,” Joshua Cody Ward, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
3:45-5:00: Session Three
Chair: Stacey Peebles, Centre College
“’Like a Shadow of a Single Being’: Equine Essentiality in All the Pretty Horses,” Diane Dolan, Garden City High School
“Iain McGilchrist, The Divided Brain, and Cormac McCarthy’s Late Diptych: What The Passenger and Stella Maris Think About Thinking,” Marty Priola, Independent Scholar
“’The World Lies Waiting”: External Nature as Inner Nature in McCarthy,” Scott Yarbrough, Charleston Southern University
6:00-8:00: Opening Reception, The Square Room, 4 Market Square
Friday, October 4
8:30-10:00: Session Four
Chair: Nell Sullivan, University of Houston, Downtown
“Child of God in Walden: McCarthy and Thoreau,” Katerina Kovarova, University of South Bohemia and Charles University
“All them Witches: Exploring Witchcraft in Cormac McCarthy’s Tennessee Novels,” Brett Lewis, Baylor University
“Special Agent McCarthy: Cormac and the American Deep State,” Brian Schill, University of North Dakota
“Understanding Cormac McCarthy through Simone Weil’s Ethics of Suffering,” Jim O’Sullivan, Wenzhou Kean University
10:15-11:30: Session Five
Chair: Marcel DeCoste, University of Regina
“Unknowing the Lost Children in Cormac McCarthy and Flannery O’Connor,” Farrell O’Gorman, Belmont Abbey College
“’Making the World Personal’: The Educational Fictions of Cormac McCarthy,” Bryan Vescio, High Point University
“Toward a Unified Field Theory of Cormac McCarthy’s Representations of Disability,” Brent Walter Cline, Hillsdale College
11:30-1:00: Lunch on your own
1:00-2:15: Session Six
Chair: Brent Cline, Hillsdale College
“Mildred Rattner and Duena Alfonsa Rocha: Unlikely Defenders of the Patriarchy,” Nell Sullivan, University of Houston, Downtown
“’No avatar, no scion, no vestige of that people remains’: The Posthuman Ecosophy of Cormac McCarthy,” Jonathan Elmore, Louisiana Tech University and Rick Elmore, Appalachian State University
“Escaping Mauve Characters in McCarthy’s Suttree: An Allusion from Joyce’s Ulysses,” Richard Rankin Russell, Baylor University
2:30-3:45: Session Seven
Chair: Brad Bannon, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
“McCarthy’s Taxonomic Imagination,” Bill Hardwig, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
“Questions of the Sublime in Blood Merdian,” William Quirk, American University
“’It’s Just a Dream’: Talk of Dreams in Cormac McCarthy’s Work,” Todd Womble, Abilene Christian University
4:00-5:15: Session Eight
Chair: Russell Hillier, Providence College
“’After the End of Days’: Two Dreams of America in Cormac McCarthy,” Vernon Cisney, Gettysburg College
"'This country is your problem': McCarthy and the Assassination of JFK," Brad Bannon, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
“The Rhythms of Christian Holidays in the Border Trilogy and The Passenger,” Rachel Griffis, Spring Arbor University
6:00 pm:
Keynote Address at the East Tennessee History Center, 601 South Gay Street
Ron Rash, “Traversing Appalachia with Cormac”
Book signing to follow
Saturday, October 5
7:30-8:45: Session Nine
Chair: Vernon Cisney, Gettysburg College
“Evolution of Evil Along the Border: Linkages Between Two McCarthy Villains,” Aaron Capulouto, Independent Scholar
“Postcards from Cormac McCarthy,” Adam David Morton, University of Sydney
“The Elite and the Illicit: Women, Power, and History in All the Pretty Horses and Cities of the Plain,” April Trepanier, Georgia Southern University
9:00-10:15: Session Ten
Chair: Bill Hardwig, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
“The Late Sun: Memories of the Future in The Crossing,” Gavin Paul, University of British Columbia
“’There wasn’t going to be any other shot’: Classical and Cristian Hamartia in No Country for Old Men,” Marcel DeCoste, Regina University
“Bending Toward Justice? Masons False and True in The Stonemason,” Russell Hillier, Providence College
10:30-11:45: Session Eleven
Chair: Stacey Peebles, Centre College
“Unboxing McCarthy: The Cormac McCarthy Archive at the Wittliff Collection,” Katie Salzmann, Texas State University
“Adventures in the Archives: Uncovering Cormac McCarthy’s Medieval Legacy,” Sarah Elizabeth Yancey, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
“Narrative Design and Substantive Variations Between McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and the ‘Western Novel’ Draft of Its Opening: A Reassessment,” Dianne C. Luce, Independent Scholar, President Emerita
12:00-1:30: Conference lunch and remarks by Society President Stacey Peebles
1:30-2:45: Session Twelve
Chair: Brent Cline, Hillsdale College
“Knoxville Characters in Cormac McCarthy’s The Passenger,” Wes Morgan, Emeritus, University of Tennessee, Knoxville
“Beauty, Truth, and Temptation in The Passenger and Stella Maris,” Terra Kirkland, Independent Scholar
"Books Are Made out of Books: The Passenger Drafts and Cormac McCarthy's Literary Influences," Michael Crews, Regent University
3:00-4:15: Session Thirteen
Chair: Nell Sullivan, University of Houston, Downtown
“Nuclear Family: Reproductive Futurism in the Near Past of The Passenger and Stella Maris,” Matthew Spencer, Auburn University
“(Un) Representation of the Atomic Bomb and the Paradoxical Structure of Responsibility in The Passenger,” Kazuhiko Yamaguchi, Sophia University
“The Orchard Keeper and James Joyce’s A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man: The Late Bildungsroman,” Michael Fonash, University of Nevada, Las Vegas
4:30-5:45: Session Fourteen
Chair: Steven Frye, California State University, Bakersfield
“The Kafkaesque Character in The Passenger” John Vanderheide, Huron University
“Annie Dillard’s For Time Being as Cormac McCarthy’s Favorite Religious Text,” Bryan Giemza, Texas Tech University
“Something of a Paranoid Fantasy: Guilt, Trauma, and the Impossibility of Knowing in The Passenger,” Benjamin S. West, State University of New York, Delhi
Closing Remarks
Sunday, October 6
10:00 am: Optional walking tour of Suttree-related sites with Bill Hardwig