The American Vandal
Matt Seybold, Center For Mark Twain Studies
An ever-growing collection of conversations about literature, humor, and history in America, produced by the premier source for programming and funding scholarship on Mark Twain's life and legacy.
Episodes
Mentioned books
Oct 26, 2020 • 50min
Mark Twain, The World, & Susan K. Harris
Susan K. Harris, author of "Mark Twain, The World, & Me: Following the Equator, Then & Now," sits down with Matt Seybold to discuss the project that took her to Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa, among other places, and found her examining her own life and career, as well as the author whose footsteps she was following in.
Oct 12, 2020 • 48min
The Viral Reprinting of Mark Twain's Hawaii Jokes & Mark Twain Meets Dracula
This episode begins with Todd Nathan Thompson's paper for "The Viral Twain" panel at Virtual C19. Dr. Thompson tracks how Twain's jokes based on his visit to Hawaii were reprinted and often misprinted in the 1870s and 1880s, as Twain was increasingly approached as a pundit on annexation.
The second half of the episode (24:00) contained Mark Dawidziak's Trouble Begins Lecture about the influence of Twain on Bram Stoker.
For more information on joining "The Viral Twain" conversation, including the presentations by Avery Blankenship and Matt Seybold: https://marktwainstudies.com/the-viral-twain-at-virtual-c19-dissent/
Oct 12, 2020 • 45min
James Redpath, Bleeding Kansas, & The Networks of Disunion
Mark Twain's publicist and booking agent, proprietor of the Boston Lyceum Bureau, started his career as a hardscrabble freelance journalist. He discovered he had a knack for star-making long before he met Mark Twain. Matt Seybold tells the largely forgotten tale of James Redpath becoming John Brown's "right hand man" on the cusp of the Civil War.
This episode is part of "The Viral Twain" panel at Virtual C19. For more information visit MarkTwainStudies.org or C19society.org.
