Chemung County Historical Society Presents the 2019 Mark Twain Speaker Series
The Center for Mark Twain Society is proud to sponsor the Chemung County Historical Society “2019 Mark Twain Speaker Series.” All talks will be held at 7 pm at the Chemung Valley History Museum located at 415 E. Water Street, Elmira, NY, and are free. Call 607-734-4167 for more information.
Thursday, September 5 at the Chemung Valley History Museum
“Mark Twain & The Networks of Disunion”
Matt Seybold, Elmira College
“Nature has no originality,” Mark Twain wrote, “Everything which has happened once must happen again and again and again – and not capriciously, but at regular periods.” Elmira College’s Dr. Seybold will examine Twain’s insights into mass media and particularly how those insights resonate with the media revolution of our own time.
Matt Seybold is Assistant Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College. He is the resident scholar at the Center for Mark Twain studies and editor of MarkTwainStudies.org .
Thursday, September 12 at the Chemung Valley History Museum
“Mark Twain’s Historical Fiction; or, Why Would A Realist Write So Many Romances?”
Nathaniel Cadle, Florida International University
Despite their ongoing popularity, Mark Twain’s frequent forays into historical fiction have often puzzled literary critics. Dr. Cadle will focus his talk on the “straight” Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, which Twain knew was so unusual for him that he first published it under a pseudonym.
Nathaniel Cadle is an Assistant Professor of English at Florida International University in Miami, Florida.
Thursday, September 19 at the Chemung Valley History Museum
“The Clemenses, The Cranes, and The Household Art Movement”
Walter G. Ritchie, Jr., Independent Scholar
The Clemenses and the Cranes followed the tenets of the Household Art Movement popular in the late 19th century. Ritchie, Jr. will talk about parallels between the interiors of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, and that of Quarry Farm, the residence of Susan and Theodore Crane in Elmira, to illustrate the interchange between the two families of design reform principles.
Walter G. Ritchie, Jr., is an independent decorative arts scholar and architectural historian specializing in nineteenth-century American domestic architecture, interiors, and furniture.