“The Benediction of A Kiss This Christmas Morning”
But for this promise, made by a famously itinerant and oft-inebriated author in the wee hours of Christmas morning 154 years ago, the Elmira College Center for Mark Twain Studies would not exist.
Author: Matt Seybold
Matt Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, as well as Resident Scholar at the Center For Mark Twain Studies. He is the founding editor of MarkTwainStudies.org. In addition to writing series like "The Apocryphal Twain," "The Twain Doctrine," and "Mark Twain's Portfolio," Dr. Seybold creates our Digital Editions. He is also the executive producer and primary host of The American Vandal Podcast, co-organizer of the Summer Teachers Institute, and an ex officio member of the organizing committees for all our fellowships and conferences. Dr. Seybold's work on Twain has been published in numerous peer-reviewed and public-facing venues. He is an active member of the Mark Twain Circle of America and part of the editorial board of the Mark Twain Annual.
The 6th & 7th John S. Tuckey Awards For Lifetime Achievement in Mark Twain Studies
Susan K. Harris and Bruce Michelson have been fixtures of Twain Studies since the 1980s. Their publications have helped shape the field during that time, but their contributions go well beyond books and articles.
The Twain Doctrine: Citizen Holbrook & The Geopolitics of Colloquial Humor
Hal Holbrook was, briefly, an agent of the US government in the Cultural Cold War with the Soviet Union.
The Apocryphal Twain: “It is easier to con a man than to convince him he has been conned.”
Viral apocrypha associated with January 6 hearings.
The Twain Doctrine
The midcentury resurgence of interest in Mark Twain’s life and work was fueled by the propaganda operations of both the U.S. and U.S.S.R.
#StagecoachLife: 150 Years of Mark Twain’s Roughing It
Mark the 150th anniversary of the publication of Mark Twain’s Roughing It by joining a discussion of the book with CMTS’s resident scholar.
150 Years of The Revised Catechism
Get rich. Dishonestly if we can; honestly if we must.
Broken Idol: An Encomium For Hal Bush
Harold K. Bush, known to his friends as Hal, passed away earlier this week after a prolonged and finally unsuccessful recovery from a traumatic brain injury. Hal was a professor at St. Louis University and an acclaimed Twain scholar, probably best known for Mark Twain & The Spiritual Crisis of His Age (2007) and The Letters of Mark Twain & Joseph Hopkins Twichell (2017). His chapter on Twain in Continuing […]
The Fickle Affections of The Elmira Advertiser For Frederick Douglass
How did the editor of a paper that was habitually rude to Frederick Douglass end up with the manuscript of his Emancipation Day speech?
Even If He Weren’t My Friend: Frederick Douglass & Mark Twain
Matt Seybold traces the relationship between Frederick Douglass and Mark Twain, asking whether Twain was in the audience for Douglass’s Emancipation Day speech in Elmira in 1880.