Center For Mark Twain Studies

Sullivan's essay is the best thing to come out of the Chernow biography's reception, at least so far, & Harper's was nice enough to offer me some space to say so.

Episode Summary of The American Vandal, A Tale of Today, Episode #20 Title: Literary Sociology a.k.a. The Institutional Turn a.k.a The Spreadsheet School of Literary Criticism Description: A so-called Spreadsheet Man responds. Does the institutional turn have a distinctly feminine ethos? [27:30] How is it rooted in the Post45 Collective? [49:00] What are its debts to New Historicism and Marxist Literary Criticism? [69:00] And to Fredric Jameson? [84:30] And what has become of Economic Criticism? [94:00] Cast (in order of appearance): Dan Sinykin, Matt Seybold, Brandon Taylor, Rachel Sagner Buurma, Laura Heffernan, J. D. Connor, Alexander Manshel, Fredric Jameson, Leigh Claire La Berge Soundtrack: DownRiver Collective Narration: Nathan Osgood & SNR Audio For more about this episode, including a complete bibliography, please visit MarkTwainStudies.com/TheAmericanVandal/SpreadsheetMen, or subscribe to Matt Seybold's newsletter at TheAmericanVandal.substack.com

The eight months of baited breath ends tomorrow. Dan Sinykin (@dan-sinnamon.bsky.social) responds to Brandon Taylor (and my) critique of "The Spreadsheet Men."

I never knew an ignorant person yet but was prejudiced.

AI does indeed get a lot wrong.

Solidarity & Speculation (A Tale of Today, Episode #17) - Center for Mark Twain Studies Apple Podcasts Spotify The finale of our trilogy centered on Technofeudalism begins with the intersection of political economy with aesthetics and literary forms, followed by a synthesis of financial ...

"The business prosperity of the world is only a bubble of credit & speculation, one scheme helping to float another which is no better than it, & the whole liable to come to naught as soon as the busy brain that conceived them ceases its power to devise, or some accident produces a sudden panic."

CMTS Announces the 2025 Class of Quarry Farm Fellows Join us in honoring the 2025 Quarry Farm Fellows!

Every year the Center For Mark Twain Studies funds at least a dozen Quarry Farm Fellows - including a creative writer, visual artist, & three (or more) emerging scholars - to spend 2-4 weeks in residence at the place which Twain found uniquely conducive to writing.

Excited for this year's class!

Mark Twain. Born yesterday.

John T. Lewis & Mark Twain: A Friendship “This wearer aggrandizes the watch, not the watch the wearer”

A good day to start skeeting with this excerpt from Robert Paul Lamb's forthcoming book, supplemented by documents from Bancroft and Houghton libraries.