Tag: Trouble Begins at Eight

19th Century Decorative Arts Scholar Discusses the Jervis Langdon Mansion at Upcoming Trouble Begins Lecture

Posted on by Joe Lemak

On Wednesday, May 9 in The Barn at Quarry Farm at 7:00 p.m, Walter G. Ritchie, Jr. will present a lecture entitled, “High Style in Mid-Nineteenth Century Elmira: The Architecture & Interiors of the Jervis Langdon Mansion” By the 1860s, Jervis Langdon, Mark Twain’s father-in-law, was ready to create a home that announced his status as one of Elmira’s most successful and influential businessmen. After purchasing a house built in […]

Joseph Csicsila To Kick Off The Spring 2017 “Trouble Begins” Lecture Series

Posted on by Joe Lemak

The spring portion of the 2017 The Trouble Begins Lecture Series, presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies, starts Wednesday, April 26, at 7:00 p.m., in Peterson Chapel, Cowles Hall at Elmira College.  The lecture is free and open to the public. The first lecture, “‘These Hideous Times:’ Mark Twain’s Bankruptcy and the Panic of 1893,” presented by Joseph Csicsila, takes a look at an old standby of Twain biography that Mark Twain was […]

Fourteen Downloadable “The Trouble Begins” Mark Twain Lectures Added to The Archives

Posted on by Joe Lemak

Fourteen more downloadable lectures have been added to the “Trouble Begins” Archives.  Most of these lectures come from the years 2009-2014. In 1985, the Elmira College Center for Mark Twain Studies inaugurated The Trouble Begins at Eight lecture series. The title comes from a handbill advertising Mark Twain’s October 2, 1866 lecture presented at Maguire’s Academy of Music in San Francisco.  The lectures are now held in the Spring, Summer, and […]

Judith Yaross Lee to Conclude the Fall 2016 “Trouble Begins at Eight” Series

Posted on by Joe Lemak

Samuel L. Clemens pioneered a modern understanding of the new information economy emerging in the U.S. in the years after the Civil War because he understood and marketed Mark Twain as a brand-name comic commodity. Judith Yaross Lee explains how Clemens managed the Mark Twain brand by extending it to some activities, excluding it from others, and exploiting its modern conception of the self in his public performances.   Judith […]

Center for Mark Twain Studies Presents Dan Hoyle

Posted on by Matt Seybold

Recent books by Richard Zacks and Judith Yaross Lee (who will be giving the final lecture of the fall season of Trouble Begins at Eight on November 2nd) have emphasized Mark Twain’s unprecedented performance style. Twain abandoned the self-serious moralizing of popular antebellum lecturers, but also demurred from seeking easy laughs like slapstick vaudevillians. Next week, on October 27th at 7:00 PM, CMTS welcomes a contemporary performer who, like Twain, […]

Mark Twain’s Personal Style Subject of Lecture by Martin Zehr

Posted on by Matt Seybold

The Trouble Begins at Eight lecture series continues on Wednesday at Quarry Farm with a lecture by Martin Zehr entitled “Dressing for Success: Mark Twain Fashions an Image to Suit His Disguise. While famous for the attention-getting white linen suits he donned in his later years, Mark Twain was aware of the functional value of outer coverings throughout his life. A survey of Sam Clemens’s wardrobe choices underscores his sensitivity […]

Trouble Begins at Eight Continues with Peter Messent on Mark Twain & Joe Twichell

Posted on by Joe Lemak

The second lecture in the fall portion of The Trouble Begins at Eight Lecture Series will be presented by Peter Messent, at 8:00 p.m., on Wednesday, October 12 in the Barn at Quarry Farm. Doors open at 7:30 p.m., and attendees are invited to enjoy light refreshments preceding the lecture, which is free and open to the public. “‘You know the secret places of our hearts’: The Mark Twain – Joe Twichell Letters” will use selected […]

A Tour of Huck Finn’s America

Posted on by Matt Seybold

On Monday, November 30th, as part of our celebration of Mark Twain’s 180th birthday, Elmira College will host Andrew Levy. Earlier this year, Dr. Levy’s book, Huck Finn’s America, became something of a lightning rod in perpetual debates about the purpose and prescience of Twain’s most famous novel. Discussion of Dr. Levy’s argument spilled out of the pages of academic journals and into popular publications like The New York Times, […]