Dr. Theresa Towner to be keynote speaker at Delta Blues Symposium XIV

March 18, 2008 -- In conjunction with the Delta Blues Symposium XIV: Sense of Place, the department of English and Philosophy at Arkansas State University presents renowned Faulkner scholar Dr. Theresa Towner, who will deliver the symposium’s keynote lecture on Friday, March 28, at 4:30 p.m. in the Student Union Auditorium, 101 N. Caraway Road, Jonesboro. Towner, a renowned scholar of William Faulkner’s works, is a professor at the University of Texas at Dallas. Her lecture, “No One Gets Outta Here Without Singin’ the Blues,” is free and open to the public.

Dr. Towner earned an undergraduate degree from the University of Kansas. She earned her MA from the University of Exeter and her PhD from the University of Virginia. She has taught at the University of Virginia, Texas Woman’s University, and the University of Texas at Dallas, where she is now a professor of Literary Studies. A regular visitor to the annual Faulkner and Yoknapatawpha Conference at the University of Mississippi, she is the author of numerous articles on Faulkner, as well as the books “Faulkner on the Color Line: Later Novels,” and, with James B. Carothers, “Reading Faulkner: Collected Stories.” Her most recent book is “The Cambridge Introduction to William Faulkner.”

All symposium events, which continue until Saturday, March 29, on the ASU-Jonesboro campus, are free and open to the public. For additional information on this and other symposium events, visit http://www.clt.astate.edu/blues/ or call (870) 972-3043.

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