Kerry Driscoll lectures on her new book, concludes 2018 Park Church Lecture Series

The 2018 Park Church Lecture Series, hosted by the Center for Mark Twain Studies, concludes Wednesday, July 11 in the historic and cultural landmark, The Park Church, 208 W. Gray Street, Elmira.  The lecture begins at 7:00 p.m., and is free and open to the public. “Mark Twain and The Native Other” Kerry Driscoll, University of St. Joseph In his 1899 essay “Concerning the Jews,” Twain states: I am quite sure that […]

CMTS’ Own, Barbara Snedecor, To Present at Next Park Church Lecture

The 2018 Park Church Lecture Series, hosted by the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, begins Wednesday, June 20 in the historic and cultural landmark, The Park Church, 208 W. Gray Street, Elmira.  The lecture begins at 7:00 p.m., and is free and open to the public. “’…there is only one thing of real importance…’: The Letters of Olivia Langdon Clemens” Barbara Snedecor, Elmira College Olivia Langdon Clemens The letters […]

Park Church Lecture Series Begins This Wednesday

The 2018 Park Church Lecture Series, hosted by the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, begins Wednesday, June 13 in the historic and cultural landmark, The Park Church, 208 W. Gray Street, Elmira.  The lecture begins at 7:00 p.m., and is free and open to the public. The first lecture, “Fingerprints and Microbe Time: Mark Twain and Scientific Skepticism,” is presented by James W. Leonard, adjunct English professor with The […]

2018 Park Church Summer Lectures

The 2018 Park Church Summer Lecture Series Previous “Park Church” and “Trouble Begins” lectures can be found and downloaded in the “Trouble Begins” Archives” or by clicking here. Wednesday, June 13 at the Park Church 7 p.m. “Fingerprints and Microbe Time: Mark Twain and Scientific Skepticism” James W. Leonard, The Citadel It is well known that Twain took contemporary social, political, and particularly racial beliefs to task through an incisive […]

Downloadable Recordings of Recent Twain Lectures Now Available

The mission of the Center for Mark Twain Studies is to support and promote all facets of Twain scholarship.  One of the most effective means of pursing this mission is our long-running lecture series The Trouble Begins and our relatively new Park Church Summer lectures series. All CMTS-sponsored  lectures are free and open to the public. Furthermore, via MarkTwainStudies.org, we can expand access to them by making them available as recordings […]

Lecture on Artemus Ward Concludes the 2017 Park Church Lecture Series

The 2017 Park Church Summer Lecture Series, presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, continues Wednesday, June 21 at 7:00 p.m., with its final lecture of the season, “Artemus Ward: The Man Who Made Lincoln Laugh” presented by John Pascal, teacher at Seton Hall Prep School. It is generally accepted that during his lifetime, Mark Twain was considered the preeminent American master storyteller and lecturer of humor. […]

Dr. Sarah Ingle Continues The Park Church Lecture Series

The 2017 Park Church Summer Lecture Series, presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, continues Wednesday, June 21 at 7:00 p.m., with the lecture, “Conjuring the Superstitions of a Nation: Magic, Memory, and Huckleberry Finn,” presented by Sarah Ingle, English lecturer at the University of Virginia. In Following the Equator (1897), Mark Twain wrote, “Let me make the superstitions of a nation and I care not who makes […]

Dr. Ball’s Lecture Kicks Off The 2017 Park Church Lectures

The 2017 Park Church Summer Lecture Series, presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, begins Wednesday, June 14 at 7:00 p.m., in the historic and cultural landmark, The Park Church (208 W. Gray St.). The lecture, “Twain and the Hawaiian Nation,” presented by Molly Ball, examines Mark Twain in an age of high nationalism. Twain’s lifetime (1835 to 1910) spanned decades in which many new nations emerged […]

CMTS Announces the 2017 Park Church Summer Lecture Series Lineup

  Although Mark Twain’s religious skepticism is well-known, some of his closest friends were clergymen and persons with a strong faith. In Elmira, New York, Twain became good friends with a most unusual clergyman, the Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, pastor of The Park Church, of which Jervis Langdon, Twain’s father-in-law, was a founding member. Please join CMTS for three nights of lectures at The Park Church, one of the most […]

Never In A Hurry To Believe: The Theology of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

On this day 132 years ago the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the first “banning” of Adventures of Huckleberry, by the Concord Public Library. Controversy has followed the novel ever since, with the most recent ruckus occurring just a few months ago in a Virginia school district. Recent attempts to suppress the book are prompted by its racially offensive language instead of snobby objections to “rough, ignorant dialect.” Both cases, however, seem fixated on the novel’s […]