CFP: Panel on “Afterlives of Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” at NeMLA 2020 in Boston, MA (March 5-8, 2020)

Consider submitting a proposal for the NeMLA Convention in Boston in March.

Gears & God: What Powered Twain’s Speculative Fiction?

What do we learn when we read Mark Twain alongside long-forgotten novels about giant robots and electric tanks? That was my initial question when I started the project that became my book, Gears and God: Technocratic Fiction, Faith, and Empire in Mark Twain’s America. I knew that, to understand a protean literary figure like Mark Twain, often the context we place him in reveals new areas of significance. American literature […]

The Legacy of Lawrence I. Berkove (Courtesy of Mark Twain Journal)

EDITOR’S NOTE: We were saddened to learn this past weekend of the passing of Lawrence I. Berkove, a former Quarry Farm Fellow, Trouble Begins lecturer, and frequent guest of Elmira College and Friend of CMTS. With permission from the Mark Twain Journal, we are pleased to reprint this essay, written for the occasion of Prof. Berkove being named a Legacy Scholar in 2014 by his former student, colleague, and longtime collaborator, Joe […]

Twain and Chaucer Are Featured in Next “Trouble Begins” Lecture

The fall portion of the 2017-2018 The Trouble Begins Lecture Series, presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies, continues Wednesday, October 18 at 7:00 p.m. in the Barn at Quarry Farm. The lecture, “Mark Twain and the Narrative Magic of Medieval Literacy Spunk-Water Stumps” will be presented by Liam Purdon from Doane University. While much instructive scholarship has been published treating Mark Twain’s interest in and use of Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur as […]

The Android & The Icon: Mark Twain’s Appearance on Star Trek: The Next Generation

With the upcoming premier of Star Trek: Discovery (CBS) on September 24, we thought it might be fun to look back at Mark Twain’s first appearance in the Star Trek universe. Since the original Star Trek aired in 1966, the series and its spinoffs have attempted to align themselves with high literature. Even as the women wore campy costumes and the series boasted primitive special effects, the series grounded itself […]

Recalling “Epoch-Eclipse & Apocalypse” & Anticipating August 21 Eclipse

Editor’s Note: David Ketterer is an Honorary Research Fellow at University of Liverpool and an Emeritus Professor of English at Concordia University. He has an extensive record of scholarship on American Literature and Science Fiction, notably New Worlds for Old: The Apocalyptic Imagination, Science Fiction, & American Literature (1974) and The Science Fiction of Mark Twain (1984). His most recent book, a literary biography of John Wyndham, is scheduled for publication in 2018. He has also […]

Spring 2017 “Trouble Begins” Lecture Series Concludes With Lecture From Hoi Na Kung

The spring portion of the 2016-2017 The Trouble Begins Lecture Series, presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies, concludes Wednesday, May 24, at 7:00 p.m., in the Barn at Quarry Farm.  The lecture is free and open to the public. The lecture, “The Mechanical Woman in Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court” presented by Hoi Na Kung, a doctorate student at Indiana University.  Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court abounds with comical […]