Just to push back on this thread a bit: if Harriet Beecher Stowe were alive today, would she be a follower of Blackpink on Instagram??

All kidding aside, these forays into "presentism" seem historically dishonest to me. I once even wrote a long essay about that in NEQ, called "Our MT?"; but the earlier argument I cribbed a lot from, in terms of MT and theory, was by Richard Hill, titled "Overreaching," and you can track that one down in the Critical editions version of HF, ed. by Gerald Graff.  I used Richard's fine article for years; it's provocatively subtitled: "Critical Agendas and the Ending of AHF," and I don't imagine everyone will agree with some of what he suggests. But the conversations are often pretty decent.

Here's my point: these "if he were alive today..." queries seem rather pointless to me--and possible dangerous, I guess. Beware of "overreaching," my friends. Anyway, I thought I would register my reservations, and see what happens next!  (really I'm just procrastinating from doing the actual work that pays for my wifi...)



Dr. Hal Bush

Professor of English &

Director of the Undergraduate Program

Saint Louis University

[log in to unmask]

314-977-3616

http://halbush.com

author website:  halbush.com

________________________________
From: Mark Twain Forum <[log in to unmask]> on behalf of Matthew Seybold <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Monday, August 10, 2020 9:18 AM
To: [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: [External] Re: If Alive Today, Would Mark Twain support "Black Lives Matter"?

I'm writing an essay about Twain's public fight against racialized police
violence in 1860s San Francisco. I made a very short video version for our
Teachers Institute earlier this Summer: https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://youtu.be/5gVlDbX2pcs__;!!K543PA!bDpoj1k0qp3CZzWMmjs_6marPOgESJEUZu5cX23M5FCxMr2NqeRP3aUe7arMRg$

I must also recommend Larry Howe's recent, related essay: "Black Lives
Matter at Quarry Farm."
https://urldefense.com/v3/__https://marktwainstudies.com/black-lives-matter-at-quarry-farm/__;!!K543PA!bDpoj1k0qp3CZzWMmjs_6marPOgESJEUZu5cX23M5FCxMr2NqeRP3VkFhkpk3g$

As Twain says, "Let us abolish policemen who carry revolvers and clubs, and
put in a squad of poets armed to the teeth with poems on Spring and love."

- MS

On Mon, Aug 10, 2020 at 9:17 AM Clay Shannon <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> If Alive Today, Would Mark Twain support "Black Lives Matter"?
> I believe that he doubtless would.
> By exposing the way some white folks thought at the time (mid-1800s) and
> place (Mississippi River valley), Mark Twain made the point in "Adventures
> of Huckleberry Finn" that Black Lives Matter.
> You might even say that is the whole theme of the book. For one example of
> that, note this passage from Chapter 33 where Twain, in a tongue-in-cheek
> way, underscores the illogical thinking of some white people of the time
> and place:
> “Now I can have a good look at you; and, laws-a-me, I’ve been hungry for
> it a many and a many a time, all these long years, and it’s come at last!
> We been expecting you a couple of days and more.  What kep’ you?—boat get
> aground?”
> “Yes’m—she—”
> “Don’t say yes’m—say Aunt Sally.  Where’d she get aground?”
> I didn’t rightly know what to say, because I didn’t know whether the boat
> would be coming up the river or down.  But I go a good deal on instinct;
> and my instinct said she would be coming up—from down towards Orleans. That
> didn’t help me much, though; for I didn’t know the names of bars down that
> way.  I see I’d got to invent a bar, or forget the name of the one we got
> aground on—or—Now I struck an idea, and fetched it out:
> “It warn’t the grounding—that didn’t keep us back but a little.  We blowed
> out a cylinder-head.”
> “Good gracious! anybody hurt?”
> “No’m.  Killed a nigger.”
> “Well, it’s lucky; because sometimes people do get hurt.  Two years ago
> last Christmas your uncle Silas was coming up from Newrleans on the old
> Lally Rook, and she blowed out a cylinder-head and crippled a man.  And I
> think he died afterwards.  He was a Baptist.  Your uncle Silas knowed a
> family in Baton Rouge that knowed his people very well.  Yes, I remember
> now, he did die.  Mortification set in, and they had to amputate him. But
> it didn’t save him.  Yes, it was mortification—that was it.  He turned blue
> all over, and died in the hope of a glorious resurrection. They say he was
> a sight to look at.
>
>
> - B. Clay Shannon
>


--
Matt Seybold
Assistant Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies
Elmira College
Editor, https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://MarkTwainStudies.org__;!!K543PA!bDpoj1k0qp3CZzWMmjs_6marPOgESJEUZu5cX23M5FCxMr2NqeRP3VnOFIzS0A$
https://urldefense.com/v3/__http://MattSeybold.com__;!!K543PA!bDpoj1k0qp3CZzWMmjs_6marPOgESJEUZu5cX23M5FCxMr2NqeRP3VkV6uzSzw$