Elmira 2022: The Ninth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies


CONFERENCE SCHEDULE, ABSTRACTS, AND ATTENDEE EMAILS


Growth: The Most Rigorous Law of Our Being

“What is the most rigorous law of our being? Growth.”

Mark Twain, from “Consistency,” a paper read in Hartford in 1887 (RPT CTSS1, 909).

Established in 1989, the Center for Mark Twain Studies “International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies” is the oldest and largest gathering devoted to all things Twain. During times so turbulent and uncertain as to require that that the quadrennial conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies be postponed by a year, the theme of change and growth “speaks to our condition,” as the Quakers say. 

The conference was held from Thursday, August 4 to Saturday, August 6, 2022 on the campus of Elmira College in Elmira, New York. An important focus of the conference was scholarly discussion of the study of Mark Twain and how the field might grow and change in response to changing conditions in the world, in the academy, and in the field of Mark Twain Studies. 

In addition to scholarly presentations, the conference provided contexts for Mark Twain and his life in Elmira, and will also feature a keynote by Jimmy Santiago Baca, an award-winning writer for whom Twain has been an important influence. Mr. Baca’s keynote was titled A Sense of Twain.” (Photos of Jimmy Santiago Baca courtesy of Lonnie J. Anderson)

David Bianculli (left) and Mark Dawidziak

Conference attendees also had the opportunity to attend a special multi-media presentation by two nationally-known and respected television critics David Bianculli (NPR’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Rowan University, and www.TVWorthWatching.com) and Mark Dawidziak (recently retired from Cleveland’s Plain Dealer and Kent State University). They examinined a number of portrayals of Mark Twain on both the big and small screen with humor and wit in “All The Twain’s Meet: The Film and TV Portrayals.”


Individual Papers

Jimmy Santiago Baca, “A Sense of Twain” (August 5, 2022 – Elmira College Campus – Keynote Address)


Philip Bauer, “For the Sake of Growth: My Inconsistent Look at the Life of Jean Clemens” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Donald T. Bliss, “Mark Twain’s Ten Lessons for a Workable Democracy: Or, Keeping the Republic” (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


David Bordelon, “Huckleberry Finn and 21st Century Hucksters” (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


George Cabanas, “Avatar of God: Mark Twain versus the Moral Sense and the Implications for the Contemporary World” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus”


Elizabeth Cantalamessa, “The Devil and Mark Twain” (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


James Caron, “Mark Twain Lying In Bed” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Rosie Click, “‘The [Real] American Game’: Twain’s Thoughts on Soft Imperialism in Cuba” (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


John Davis, “The Pursuit of Disappointment: Growth of Status and Growth of Delusion in ‘The $30,000 Bequest’” (August 5, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Maggie E. Morris Davis, “‘[H]e realized the shabbiness of his own self’: Reading Children in Poverty in Twain’s Adaptation Network” (August 5, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Mark Dawidziak, “Big River, Lighting Out for the Tonys” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


M.M. Dawley, “‘Only dead men can tell the truth in this world’: The Growth of Mark Twain’s Anger” (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Kerry Driscoll, “‘Talking is the thing’: Mark Twain’s Bold Experiment in Empowering Women’s Voices” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Shelley Fisher Fishkin, “How Hal Holbrook’s Understanding of Mark Twain Grew and Changed Over Time: The First Decade” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Harold Hellwig, “The Political Theater in Mark Twain’s Illustrated Works” (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Aleksandra Hernandez, “Disgust, Contempt, and Animal Cruelty in Twain’s Later Writings” (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Thomas W. Howard, “‘Two stories tangled together’: The Double Brain, Pudd’nhead Wilson and Those Extraordinary Twins” (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Tsuyoshi Ishihara, “Time for Change: Mark Twain in US School Textbooks, 1950s-1960’s” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Takuya Kubo, “Mark Twain’s Failures as ‘Neglected Texts’” (August 5, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Virginia Maresca, “‘Treachery on both sides’: Mark Twain’s Lessons to Modern America on White Victimhood” (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Linda A. Morris, “Susy Clemens: The Final Years (1890-1896)” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


L.Terry Oggel, “Mark Twain’s Pudd’nhead Wilson: The Tragedy of Nineteenth-Century American Race Law” (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Alan Rankin, “Nina Gabrilowitsch: Actress, Writer, Photographer” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Matt Seybold, “Darnella Frazier’s Smartphone & Mark Twain’s Notebook: The Vigilante Origin of American Police (August 6, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Jeff Steinbrink, “Of Time and Quantum Mechanics in Roughing It” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Mika Turim-Nygren, “Huckleberry Finn‘s ‘Effect of Indigeneity’: Native Erasure in Law and Literature” (August 4, 2022 – Elmira College Campus)


Conference Planning Committee

  • John Bird, Winthrop University, emeritus
  • Jocelyn Chadwick, National Council of Teachers of English
  • Ben Click, St. Mary’s College of Maryland
  • Shelley Fisher Fishkin, Stanford University
  • Susan K. Harris, University of Kansas, emerita
  • Tsuyoshi Ishihara, University of Tokyo
  • Ronald Jenn, University of Lille
  • Holger Kersten, Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg
  • Selina Lai-Henderson, Duke Kunshan University
  • Judith Yaross Lee, Ohio University, emerita
  • Joseph Lemak, Center for Mark Twain Studies, Elmira College
  • James S. Leonard, The Citadel
  • Linda A. Morris, University of California, Davis, emerita
  • Matt Seybold, Center for Mark Twain Studies, Elmira College
  • Seema Sharma, University of Mumbai
  • Tracy Wuster, University of Texas at Austin
Center for Mark Twain Studies