NEH Summer Seminar on Mark Twain at Elmira College

In July 2007, the Center for Mark Twain Studies will host Mark Twain in
His Age, a four-week summer seminar for school teachers funded by the
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH).    Dr. Lawrence I. Berkove,
an extensively published authority on Mark Twain, Emeritus Professor of
English and American Literature at the University of Michigan-Dearborn,
and president of the Mark Twain Circle of America, will co-direct the
seminar along with Barbara Snedecor, Director of the Center for Mark
Twain Studies at Elmira College.  Dr. Joseph Csicsila, Associate
Professor of English from Eastern Michigan University, will serve as
consultant and discussion facilitator.

Fifteen teachers from across the United States and locally will be
chosen to attend the seminar from July 8 - August 3, 2007.  Selected
participants will receive a $3,000 stipend to support their expenses.
The fifteen visiting scholars will attend classes, view films, write
responses, and enjoy trips to the Mark Twain House and Harriet Beecher
Stowe House in Connecticut and The Farmers' Museum in Cooperstown.  In
this one-month seminar, visiting scholars  will move rapidly over the
background of  bookish disputes associated with Mark Twain and proceed
to the heart of the matter: characteristic ideas in Twain that, like
fingerprints, can be used to definitively identify his work, and
techniques of reading that can reveal the purposes of this master of
subtlety and subterfuge.

Visiting scholars will concentrate on the following major Twain works:
Roughing It, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in
King Arthur's Court, and No. 44: The Mysterious Stranger.  These texts
will be supplemented with several particularly relevant Twain stories
and a course pack of related stories by contemporary authors who
influenced or interacted with Twain. Those wishing further information
or to apply to the Summer Seminar may contact Barbara Snedecor at
[log in to unmask] or consult the web page that contains all
application information.  See
http://www.elmira.edu/resources/shared/neh/index.html.


Mark Twain in His Age has been designated a special NEH "We the People"
project.  The goal of this initiative is to encourage and strengthen the
teaching, study, and understanding of American history and culture
through the support of projects that explore significant events and
themes in our nation's history.