Well,I tried. It worked last time but not this. Sorry. Bob In a message dated 7/6/2014 8:27:20 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, [log in to unmask] writes: =20 For those of us who receive HTML as Text with lots of spurious static,=20 here is Shelly's fine tribute in plain text format. =20 J. R. LeMaster is best known by Mark Twain scholars for having co-edited= =20 The Mark Twain Encyclopedia with Jim Wilson. But I think it=E2=80=99s impo= rtant to=20 recall another, less-known contribution he made to Twain scholarship: he i= s=20 responsible for having given readers in the English-speaking world access= =20 to an important commentary on Mark Twain published in China. LeMaster had a long and deep connection to China that included spending=20 two years in Beijing and publishing a moving bilingual book of his own poe= try=20 about China (Journeys Around China, Chinese translations by Sui Gang and= =20 Hua Zhi, published in China in 2003). But I am particularly=20 indebted to him for having restored to us a major a speech delivered in=20 Beijing by a leading Chinese writer in 1960 to commemorate the 50th=20 anniversary of Mark Twain=E2=80=99s death. For decades, scholars had assumed this speech had been lost, but LeMaste= r =E2=80=99s determined searching over many years finally bore fruit. He and= a=20 Chinese scholar named Zhao Huazhi, managed to locate a copy. They arranged= for=20 it to be translated into English by Zhao Yuming and Sui Gang. Edited by= =20 J.R. Le Master, who worked with them on the translation, it was published = in=20 US-China Review in 1995. [US-China Review 19 (Summer 1995), pp. 11-15 as = =E2=80=9C Mark Twain: Exposer of the Dollar Empire. The speech was particularly noteworthy not only because Lao She was one=20 the leading Chinese authors of the 20th century, but also because the aspe= cts=20 of Twain=E2=80=99s social criticism that he highlighted were not particula= rly=20 salient at mid-century in the US. Arguing that Twain=E2=80=99s criticism o= f the =E2=80=98 Dollar Empire=E2=80=99 =E2=80=9Chas retained profound and immediate signi= ficance throughout=20 the past half century,=E2=80=9D Lao She asserted that =E2=80=9CMark Twain= =E2=80=99s reprimand of the=20 imperialist aggressive powers and sympathy for the anti-colonialist Asian= =20 and African people [are] especially significant. This is the part of his= =20 literary heritage we should value most.=E2=80=9D But until the publication= of Jim=20 Zwick=E2=80=99s book Mark Twain=E2=80=99s Weapons of Satire: Anti-Imperial= ist=20 Writings on the Philippine-American War in 1992, this was probably the=20 part of Twain=E2=80=99s literary heritage that his countrymen valued least= . =20 (Virtually the only American critics paying attention to this aspect of Tw= ain at=20 the time Lao She made these remarks were Philip Foner and Maxwell Geismar.= ) Although Lao She=E2=80=99s speech served China=E2=80=99s ruling interests a= t the time and =20 contained some of the expected Cold War jargon, it also contained some =20 insightful readings of pieces by Twain with which American readers were the= n =20 largely unfamiliar. With a few exceptions Twain=E2=80=99s trenchant critiqu= es of the =20 country he loved tended to be as ignored in the United States at midcentury= =20 as they were celebrated in =3D China. =20 Indeed, among the works Lao She mentioned in the 1960 speech was Twain=E2= =80=99s =E2=80=9C Treaty with China,=E2=80=9D a piece so obscure that it was not reprinted f= rom its=20 original 1868 publication until Martin Zehr brought it to light in 2010 in= =20 the Journal of Transnational American Studies=20 (http://escholarship.org/uc/item/5t02n32=20 In addition to being the 50th anniversary of Mark Twain=E2=80=99s death, 1= 960 was=20 the sixtieth anniversary of the anti-imperialist, anti-missionary Boxer=20 Uprising in China. (Lao She had written a four-act play about this event= =20 titled Shen Ruan the same year that he gave this speech. ) Most Americans = by=20 1960 had long forgotten the sympathy that Mark Twain had shown to the Boxe= rs,=20 but Lao She and his countrymen had not. Lao She quotes with approval Twain= =E2=80=99 s comment, =E2=80=9CThe Boxer is a patriot=3D85I wish him success. I am a B= oxer =20 myself.=E2=80=9D=20 Lao She was president of the National Association of Writers when he gave= =20 this speech. An influential novelist and dramatist, he was named =E2=80=9C= The People =E2=80=99s Artist=E2=80=9D and played a prominent role in the Chinese lite= rary=20 establishment before he was purged from the Communist Party and became a v= ictim of=20 the Cultural Revolution (It is undisputed that Lao She delivered this spee= ch.=20 However, as I learned in 2009 from Gongzhao Li, the prominent Chinese poet= =20 and scholar, Yuan Kejia evidently claimed in a Chinese journal in 1985=20 that he was paid to write this speech for Lao She to deliver, and that he = was=20 its actual author despite the fact that the text continues to be widely=20 credited to Lao She in China, and appears in his Collected Works. ) I met J. R. LeMaster in 2006 when I gave a keynote talk at an American=20 Studies Association of Texas at Baylor. He was kind enough to give me a co= py=20 of the piece that he had done so much to recover and get translated and=20 published. He and I were both pleased that I was able to include the Lao= =20 She/Yuan Kejia speech in The Mark Twain Anthology: Great Writers on His Li= fe=20 and Work (Library of America, 2010). I learned only last December, through correspondence with LeMaster, of the= =20 depth of his association with Lao She=E2=80=99s family. LeMaster=E2=80=99s= book of=20 poetry, Journeys Around China, includes a photograph of LeMaster with Lao = She=E2=80=99s=20 son, Xu Yi, taken when LeMaster visited him in his home. Xu Yi was Direct= or=20 of the Beijing Library of Contemporary Literature and spent most of his=20 life writing about his father. LeMaster wrote me that he got to know him= =20 quite well. LeMaster also directed the senior thesis of Lao She=E2=80=99s= =20 granddaughter, although he notes that he left China before she completed i= t. During=20 his stay in China, LeMaster conducted interviews with half a dozen Chinese= =20 writers, including =E2=80=9Ca writer of opera who was beaten alongside Lao= She.=E2=80=9D =20 LeMaster wrote me that =E2=80=9CLao She drowned in Lake Kunming, either dr= owned=20 himself or was murdered and thrown there. Xu Yi says he could stand no mor= e=20 humiliation and took his own life.=E2=80=9D LeMaster noted that the inter= views he=20 conducted in China are in the oral history archives at Baylor. According to LeMaster, three sets of government censors refused to let =20 three different publishing houses publish his book of poems. The version = of=20 Journeys around China that finally appeared in China in 2003 omits about ha= lf=20 of the original manuscript, including all the poems he wrote about the =20 Tiananmen Square Massacre. Although the more political poems were cut by th= e =20 censors, many of the poems that remain are quietly beautiful and evocative= . I feel compelled, on the occasion of his passing, to express my=20 appreciation for LeMaster=E2=80=99s determination to share a major Chinese= commentary on=20 Twain with the English-speaking world. I am personally grateful to him fo= r=20 having made me aware of it when he did. For encountering this text help ma= ke=20 me realize that I had been largely oblivious, as a scholar, to the global= =20 body of commentaries on Mark Twain in languages other than English. That realization set in motion an odyssey that led me to seek out writing= =20 on Twain in languages other than English for The Mark Twain Anthology. In= =20 addition to leading to my discovery that the first book devoted to Mark=20 Twain published anywhere was published in French in Paris in 1884, this=20 journey led me to uncover interesting commentaries on Twain originally= =20 published in Chinese, Danish, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Russian, = Spanish,=20 and Yiddish have all engaged Twain. In many cases, they had never been=20 translated into English before. Previously untranslated texts included es= says=20 by Nobel Laureates from Denmark and Japan, by two of Cuba=E2=80=99s most p= rominent=20 public intellectuals, by Argentina=E2=80=99s most celebrated author, by an= other=20 famous Chinese writer, by a major Russian poet, and by respected writers f= rom =20 Germany, Italy, Spain, and the Soviet Union. I had the pleasure of sending= =20 a copy of the book to J. R. LeMaster not long after it came out.=20 [For more on this topic, see my Mark Twain Anthology, and also my essay, = =E2=80=9C American Literature in Transnational Perspective: The Case of Mark Twain.= =E2=80=9D=20 Blackwell Companion to American Literary Studies, ed. Caroline F. Levander= =20 and Robert S. Levine (2011). Also relevant are Selina Lai=E2=80=99s forth= coming=20 book, Mark Twain in China to be published next year by Stanford University= =20 Press, and a project on =E2=80=9CThe French Face of Twain=E2=80=9D that Pau= la Harrington and=20 Ronald Jenn are undertaking.] The changes in my mental map that J. R. LeMaster helped set in motion have= =20 been profound. I am grateful for all he taught me. Shelley Fisher Fishkin Joseph S. Atha Professor of Humanities, Professor of English, and Director= =20 of American Studies, Stanford University Mail: Department of English, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305-2087 [log in to unmask] https://english.stanford.edu/people/shelley-fisher-fishkin On Jul 3, 2014, at 4:24 PM, Kevin Bochynski <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > The following obituary appeared today in =E2=80=9CThe Crescent-News,=E2= =80=9D Defiance,=20 Ohio, and will be of interest to members of the Mark Twain community. Dr. LeMaster was co-editor with James D. Wilson of =E2=80=9CThe = Mark =20 Twain Encyclopedia=E2=80=9D published by Garland in 1993.=20 Jimmie 'J.R' LeMaster WACO, Texas -- Jimmie (J.R.) Ray LeMaster, Waco, died Sunday, June 29,=20 2014, at his residence. =20 He was born in Pike County, Ohio, to Dennis Samuel and Helen Algina (Smith)= =20 LeMaster on March 29, 1934. He attended Camp Creek Township Elementary=20 School before moving to Washington Court House, Ohio, where he attended ju= nior=20 high and high school, moving to New Boston, Ohio, in his final year. He=20 enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1951, and served four years. Upon being=20 discharged from the Navy, LeMaster moved to Defiance, Ohio, where he worke= d in an=20 iron foundry and attended classes at Defiance College. Upon graduation, he taught in local high schools before returning to his= =20 alma mater to teach in 1962, having completed a master of arts degree at= =20 Bowling Green State University. While working at Defiance College, he rece= ived=20 his PhD degree from Bowling Green in 1970. He taught at Defiance College= =20 for 15 years before moving his family to Waco to teach at Baylor Universit= y=20 in 1977. When he retired from Baylor in 2006, he had taught for 47 years,= =20 including two years in Beijing, People's Republic of China. He was preceded in death by his parents; his wife, Wanda; his son, Lon;=20 brother, Dennis and his wife, Karin; and half brother Tom McDowell. =20 He is survived by his two daughters, Lisa and DeNae, as well as his=20 brother, Marvin and his wife, Shirley; half brother, Richard McDowell and = his=20 wife, Alice; sister-in-law, Patsy McDowell; and numerous nieces and nephew= s.=20 In lieu of flowers, memorial gifts may be made to The Wanda May LeMaster= =20 Service Award, c/o Michele Tinker, Defiance College, 701 Clinton St.,=20 Defiance, Ohio 43512; email address, [log in to unmask]; phone, 419-7= 83-2303.