Just read an August _Atlantic_ review of a book called _The Death of Literature_--the particulars I forget--which claims we're not teaching lit anymore in favor of political agendas, the usual whiteoppressionimperialisticracegenderclass diversion from the texts themselves. While other fads come and go, the book's author maintains, this school won't as the acedemy now discourges diverse opinions that don't toe the party line. I thought of this reading recent posts here--remembering a joke article I wrote as a grad student--"Why Wait for the Text?: Secondary Sources as the New Belles Lettres." I envisioned a world in which scholars never have time to read actual fiction or verse, but rather are totally involved in reading each other, writing about each other, secondary sources of secondary sources re-re- evaluating secondary sources. The value of these career-shaping projects--in lieu of pay--will be determined by whether or not the source cited YOU. I foresaw a day in which tenure committees will be less interested in the stuff we write as the lists of whom and which sources cite us. I see as a precedent modern reporting: when the press has milked a news story dry, they turn to coverage of the coverage of the story--the press covering the press. Is this a/the State of Mark Twain Studies? the curious wes britton