Don't know if Wes Britton meant that spelling, but knowing him, I suspect he did! Whatever else about that kind of approach to literature, that is NOT the state of Mark Twain studies. As proof I offer all the papers from the recent Elmira conference. As I remarked to someone there, there were scant few (maybe one or two) papers with jargony, "Death of Literature" approaches. As we discussed in the critical theory session, that's never been the way of Mark Twain studies. Just a thought. -- John Bird