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Spring Virtual 'Trouble Begins' Lecture Series Set

Elmira, NY (04/27/2021) — The spring portion of the 2020-2021 The Trouble Begins Lecture Series presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies features four online lectures, with the first event set for Wednesday, May 7. All four lectures are free and available to the public on marktwainstudies.org.

The first lecture, "Mark Twain's Roadshow: Travels, Travails, and the Inspirations of a Literary Giant," will be presented by independent scholar, Laura DeMarco. "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts," Mark Twain wrote in 1869. Few writers saw more of America, or the world, than Twain - a Southerner, Westerner, miner, river boat pilot and international traveler who died a Yankee.

In her talk, DeMarco will bring lesser known stops on Clemens travels alive by pairing historic images with modern day viewpoints of the same location from the same angle and perspective - revealing how many of the sights important to Twain are with us today, and how his legacy continues to influence so much of American culture.

On Wednesday, May 12, the Series continues with "Traveling with Twain in Search of America's Identity," presented by Loren Ghiglione of Northwestern University. Over three months, Ghiglione traveled 14,000 miles by van with two young journalists, Alyssa Karas and Dan Tham. They followed the path of Mark Twain around America, beginning in his boyhood hometown of Hannibal, Missouri. Along the way they interviewed 150 Americans about race, sexual orientation, gender, and other hot-button identity issues, reflecting on the differences and similarities in attitudes between Twain's time and ours.

The Series continues on Wednesday, May 19 with "'A Work of Art?': Mark Twain's Influence on the American Use of Humor in Criticism," presented by Silas Kaine Ezell of Oklahoma Baptist University. Ezell's talk will explore the influence of Mark Twain's famous roasting of James Fenimore Cooper's Leatherstocking Tales and its unspoken influence on contemporary film criticism found in comedic video essays on social media.

The spring portion of the Series wraps up on Wednesday, May 26 with "Twain's Hartford," presented by Jodi DeBruyne, director of collections, and Mallory Howard, assistant curator, of The Mark Twain House & Museum located in Hartford, Connecticut. Howard and DeBruyne will take the audience through the House and the MTH&M collections using art, artifacts, and archives to share stories about the family's daily lives and their engagement with the Hartford community.

About The Trouble Begins Lecture Series
In 1984, the Elmira College Center for Mark Twain Studies initiated a lecture series, The Trouble Begins at Eight lecture series. The title came from the handbill advertising Mark Twain's October 2, 1866 lecture presented at Maguire's Academy of Music in San Francisco. The first lectures were presented in 1985. By invitation, Mark Twain scholars present lectures in the fall and spring of each year, in the Barn at Quarry Farm or at Peterson Chapel in Cowles Hall on Elmira College's campus. All lectures are free and open to the public.

Media Attachments

The spring portion of the 2020-2021 The Trouble Begins Lecture Series presented by the Center for Mark Twain Studies features four online lectures, with the first event set for Wednesday, May 7. All four lectures are free and available to the public on marktwainstudies.org.

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