Forward-minded

Communique from Resident Scholar Matt Seybold

This Fall I was invited to present at two events hosted by the Modern Language Association, a webinar on “Developing & Sustaining Projects in the Public Humanities” and a roundtable on “Literary Criticism: New Platforms.” The implication was clear: the Center For Mark Twain Studies is creating public-facing multimedia resources at the vanguard of the academic humanities. As the ecosystem of scholarship continues to change, we strive to emulate Twain’s spirit as a forward-minded media theorist and entrepreneur.

This year we produced four new seasons of The American Vandal Podcast, another digital edition of an underappreciated work in Twain Studies, and a blog collaboration with The Mark Twain Circle of America. We vastly expanded our archive of video lectures, launched a new critical series, and continued updating ongoing series like “The Apocryphal Twain,” “Quarry Farm Testimonials,” and “Twain For Teachers.” Once again, we set new records for web visitors, podcast downloads, and YouTube streams. We even launched a Mastodon instance in the Fediverse! (If you don’t know what that means, don’t worry about it.)

For the first time, I co-produced a podcast series with a guest host, Mika Turim-Nygren, winner of the inaugural Mark Twain Circle Emerging Scholar Award. In the three-episode arc of “Mark Twain Among The Indians,” Dr. Turim-Nygren speaks with reviewers of Kerry Driscoll’s landmark book, Native Studies scholars, and Dr. Driscoll herself. It is an outstanding pilot for what we hope will become a frequent feature of our podcast feed.

Other podcast series included “The World’s Work” (7 episodes on worker movements and labor politics from the 1880s to the present), “HBO: From Pulp To Prestige (6 episodes on the corporate history and genre categories associated with the network), and “Social Problems” (4 episodes on a chaotic year in social media). Each of these seasons featured special theme music from indie recording artists: Dan Reeder, The Snarlin’ Yarns, & Squirtgun.

By every metric, The American Vandal Podcast went to a new level in 2022. Subscriptions tripled and, according to Spotify, it was a top 10% most followed and most shared podcast in the world. Numerous episodes reached the Apple Podcast charts in the “Book” and “Arts” categories, and even the overall Top 200, in dozens of national markets, including the US, UK, and Canada.

Out biggest project of 2022 at MarkTwainStudies. org was the publication of a digital edition of Charles Neider’s Mark Twain & The Russians (1960). With rights generously donated by Susan M. Neider, we were able to create a thoroughly annotated edition of the “cultural exchange” between Neider, the preeminent midcentury editor of Twain’s works, and Yan Bereznitsky, a Soviet literary critic. Our edition also includes the Russian language version of the exchange, as it was originally published in Literaturnaya Gazeta and other primary sources.

Inspired by the publication of Mark Twain & The Russians I began a new series, “The Twain Doctrine,” focused on tracking the use (and abuse) of Twain’s legacy and likeness during the Cold War. Two installments have been published thus far, on squabbles over Twain surrounding the 1959 American Exhibition in Moscow and the 1960 State Department tour of Hal Holbrook’s Mark Twain Tonight!. More installments will be coming, along with much more, in 2023.

Thank you for your continued support of MarkTwainStudies. org, The American Vandal, and the Center For Mark Twain Studies!

Matt Seybold

Use QR code for American Vandal podcasts available on marktwainstudies.org