Kerry Driscoll Discusses The Inspiration For Her New Book, Based On Research That Began At Elmira College In 1986

The seed of what eventually became Mark Twain among the Indians and Other Indigenous Peoples, published last month by the University of California Press, was planted—quite by coincidence—long ago in Elmira. The year was 1986 and I was a freshly-minted Ph.D. (with a specialization in modern American poetry), hired on as an assistant professor at Elmira College. One day, out of the blue, I got a phone call from Dr. […]

“I Killed Thirty-Eight Persons”: Sam Clemens & The Sioux Wars, 1862-1876

EDITOR’S NOTE: Atsushi Sugimura’s provocative and nuanced reading of an under-appreciated tale was part of the Mark Twain & Native Americans Panel at The Eighth International Conference on the State of Mark Twain Studies in August of 2017.   In this presentation, I’d like to examine the ways Sam Clemens makes reference, both directly and indirectly, to the marginalized tragedies of Native Americans in “The Facts Concerning the Recent Carnival of Crime […]