The American Vandal

The authors of Genus Americanus (2020) join host Matt Seybold to discuss their 2011 road trip. Inspired by Mark Twain, they went looking for American identity through interviews with other journalists, scholars, immigrants, and nomads. What did the find? And how has it shaped their understanding of the decade which followed?

For more information, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/GenusAmericanus

The recent HBO documentary series, directed by Raoul Peck, offers a grand narrative of European colonialism and American imperialism which is broadly sympathetic with the works of Mark Twain from the final decade of his life. In this episode, a diverse group of scholars discuss Peck's film, as well as where it fits in global cinema, the U.S. media ecosystem, and postcolonial scholarship.

A beloved member of the Mark Twain Studies community, author, and St. Louis University Professor, Hal Bush, recently suffered a traumatic brain injury which has put him into a coma. In this episode, friends and fellow scholars read to him from a series of his favorite works, mostly by Mark Twain. To learn more about how you can help, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/HalBush.

Special Thanks to St. Louis University for providing theme music for this episode, a composition by Roberto Murguia and Róisín Malone.

Following on the heels of the grounding of the Ever Given in the Suez Canal last month, Matt Seybold speaks with Dr. Laleh Khalili, whose 2020 book, Sinew of War & Trade: Shipping & Capitalism in the Arabian Peninsula, covers the history, present, & potential futures of maritime transport.

For a bibliography of this episode, visit MarkTwainStudies.com/SuezCanal

This episode brings together three scholars who have been researching and writing about Mark Twain's musical tastes and the role of music education and performance in the Clemens family household.

For more information about the guests and a bibliography of works discussed during this episode, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/TwainMusic

Very few embargoed archives are as momentous as Mark Twain's Autobiography, released a century after his death, but the Hale archive, opened last year, is an obvious rival. Emily Hale saved over a thousand letters from the poet and critic, T. S. Eliot, with whom she had a decades-long love affair. In this episode, we talk to three scholars who spent portions of 2020 reading the letters and processing their many surprising revelations.

For more about this episode, including a bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/EmilyHale

The hit Disney+ & Lucasfilm TV series, The Mandalorian, was produced under the working title of "Project Huckleberry." This allusion the Mark Twain's under-appreciated legacy as an innovator in Science Fiction provides the grounds for a ranging conversation about Star Wars, The Mandalorian, and genre fiction with Emmet Asher-Perrin of Tor.com & Nathaniel Williams of UC-Davis.

For more information about this episode, including a bibilography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/ProjectHuckleberry

Three scholars of finance and literature join to talk about the ongoing story of the "Reddit Revolution," members of the r/WallStreetBets forum who organized a run on several stocks, notably GameStop, using the retail trading app, Robinhood. How is this speculative mania interconnected with the 2008 financial crisis, the current economic recession, and the new U.S. Treasury Secretary, Janet Yellen?

For more about this episode, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/Robinhood

Following the storming of the Capitol Building on January 6th, there has been a resurgent interest in the era of Reconstruction following the American Civil War. Senators, journalists, and even scholars have perpetuated long-standing myths about Reconstruction. Brook Thomas explains and debunks some of these myths, while also arguing that an informed reckoning with the unfinished business of Reconstruction can help us understand and address the political volatility of the present day.

For links to some of the works discussed in this episode, visit MarkTwainStudies.com/MythsOfReconstruction

The staff of the Center for Mark Twain Studies gathers in the library at Quarry Farm to discuss the recently-announced Quarry Farm Fellowships for the coming year, the peculiarities of living and working on the property, and the past and future of CMTS. For more information about applying for Quarry Farm Fellowships, please visit MarkTwainStudies.org.