A few thoughts:
1. I wonder if there are any essays or books that take the "Black Atlantic"
idea of Paul Gilroy and somehow apply it to what we might call the "Black
Mississippi"?
2. I am wondering if there are any works or scholars interested in how the
river served specifically as a mean of transmitting culture and change
among the communities served by it? Did Twain write about the river in
these kinds of terms?
This is probably fairly obvious stuff, but I cannot think of works
specifically in Twain scholarship that treat these kinds of issues.
Dr. Harold K. Bush, Jr.
Saint Louis University