I wade into this discussion only tentatively to report that CMTS has already lost a Quarry Farm Fellow as a direct result of these arbitrary travel restrictions. Our conference is certainly in danger of being less international and cosmopolitan than advertised, and thus an inaccurate reflection of the State of Twain Studies in 2017. In the last month residents of 73 countries have visited our website, and the Center has hosted at least half a dozen foreign nationals in the past year. Some of the most exciting works-in-progress we’ve been fortunate enough to support and engage with come from scholars in Europe, Asia, and, yes, the Middle East. We are justifiably concerned about a legitimate threat to our institutional mission, which is explicitly to serve “an international community of scholars.” We continue to pursue this mission and, to that effect, encourage all scholars, foreign and domestic, to send their abstracts, no matter how tired, poor, and wretched, to our golden door (actually mine is purple) by February 6th.  

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Matt Seybold
Assistant Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies
Elmira College
(607) 735-1957
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