“We are perched on a hill top that overlooks a little world of green valleys, shining rivers, sumptuous forests and billowy uplands veiled in the haze of distance. We have no neighbors. It is the quietest of all quiet places, and we are hermits that eschew caves and live in the sun.”
~ Mark Twain
ABOUT THE CENTER FOR MARK TWAIN STUDIES
Mark Twain wrote his most famous works in an octagonal study overlooking Elmira, NY, the hometown of his wife, Olivia. For more than two decades the Clemens family summered with Olivia’s siblings at Quarry Farm. All are buried at the nearby Woodlawn Cemetery. In 1983, both Quarry Farm and the study, since relocated to the Elmira College campus, became part of the Center for Mark Twain Studies. CMTS is dedicated to serving an international community of scholars interested in a approaching Mark Twain Studies from a variety of different approaches and disciplines.
RECENT ARTICLES
“The White House Funeral” by Mark Twain
Originally posted by: Center for Mark Twain Studies on January 20, 2017To the Editor of The Tribune. Sir: I can truly say that this has been the most melancholy day of my life. When I arose this morning & reflected that on this day it was to be given me to see...
The Twain Doctrine: Citizen Holbrook & The Geopolitics of Colloquial Humor
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on July 28, 2022In the above epigraph, Hal Holbrook alludes to the events which inspired Charles Neider’s Mark Twain & The Russians (1960). The “propaganda line” appeared first in “Mark Twain on the Bed of Procrustes,” ostensibly...
The Twain Doctrine
Originally posted by: Matt Seybold on May 10, 2022A few weeks ago the New York Times’s Moscow Bureau Chief, Anton Troianovski, reported on “the furor over suspected pro-Western sympathies” in St. Petersburg following the censoring of a poster displayed at the National...
2026 QUARRY FARM FELLOWSHIP GUIDELINES
VISITING THE MARK TWAIN STUDY
2025 SPRING TROUBLE BEGINS LECTURES
“ENERGY STUDIES”
TWELFTH QUARRY FARM SYMPOSIUM
OCTOBER 2025 – CFP TO FOLLOW SOON
TROUBLE BEGINS
LECTURE ARCHIVES
ONLINE RESOURCES
AND INFORMATION PAGES
FOR MARK TWAIN STUDIES
THE MARK TWAIN ARCHIVE
PHOTO GALLERY
RESOURCES FOR TEACHERS & STUDENTS
PAST QUARRY FARM FELLOWSHIPS
“FROM THE STUDY”
CMTS POST INDEX
PAST CONFERENCES & SYMPOSIA
KEEP MARK TWAIN’S LEGACY ALIVE
Upcoming Events & Call for Papers
Mark Twain Circle at 2025 MLA
January 9-12, 2025 – New Orleans, Louisiana
Mark Twain Circle at 2025 ALA (2 Panels)
“The Adventures of Tom Sawyer at 150” and “Open Topic”
May 21-24, 2025 – Boston, Massachusetts
CFP Deadline – January 15, 2025
American Humor Studies Association at 2025 ALA
“New Directions”” and “Open Topic”
May 21-24, 2025 – Boston, Massachusetts
CFP Deadline – January 15, 2025
2025 Center for American Literature First Book Institute
July 1-7, 2025 – Pennsylvania State University
Application Deadline – February 19, 2025
Heidelberg Center for American Studies Spring Academy Conference
March 24-28, 2025 – Heidelberg, Germany
AHSA Panel at 2025 Critical Humor Studies Association Conference
“What’s So Funny About America?”
April 25-26, 2025 – Claremont, California
American Humor Studies Association at 2025 ALA
“Humor and/in Periodicals in the Long 19th Century”
May 21-24, 2025 – Boston, Massachusetts
W.D. Howells Society at 2025 ALA
May 21-24, 2025 – Boston, Massachusetts
“Generations and Generational Time in the United States During the Long Nineteenth Century” Conference
June 12-13, 2025 – Université de Lille, France
18th International “Connotations” Symposium: Humor and Its Borders
July 29-31, 2025 – Bochum, Germany