[About a month ago Vaughn and I had the chance to attend and present at the 57th Northeast Modern Language Association Convention, held this year in Pittsburgh. So as I’ve done with almost every NeMLA conference for the last decade-plus (I wasn’t able to attend last year’s), I wanted to recap some of the stand-out moments here, leading up to a special weekend post on why this organization matters more than ever in 2026!]
Four compelling papers across a couple of excellent sessions on adapting Twain that my Dad would have really enjoyed.
- Michael Torregrossa on A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court (1889): Michael and I go way back with NeMLA, as illustrated by his inclusion in this post reflecting on a trio of 2021 sessions that I chaired. I always know that he’s going to offer a thoughtful take on how classic literary and cultural works evolve through their subsequent adaptations and iterations, and this paper on multiple uses of Twain’s time-travel historical novel (which I believe was Dad’s favorite of Twain’s books, if he were forced to choose at least) was no exception.
- Wesley McMasters on Twain Autobiographies: One of the most interesting things about these sessions was how many of the papers focused on graphic novels, a genre about which I know relatively little (but that has featured a ton of Twain adaptations, no surprise given his enduring status as one of the most famous American authors). Wesley’s focus as a particularly striking such graphic novel, Michael Kupperman’s Mark Twain’s Autobiography, 1910-2010 (2011), which imagines the author as immortal and thus still alive in the 21st century. I really appreciated Wesley’s ability to use this distinct 21st century text to think as well about Twain’s own writing, including in his own posthumously published autobiography.
- Robert Myers on Adapting Jim: I’m going to share my thoughts on Percival Everett’s James (2024) in a sabbatical reads series in a few weeks, so I won’t say too much about that fascinating adaptation of Huckleberry Finn here. Robert put that text in conversation with one I didn’t know at all, Gerry Brenner’s fascinating reader-response scholarly essay “More Than a Reader’s Response: A Letter to ‘De Ole True Huck’” (1995), to consider how both authors attempt to create the voice of one of Twain’s most complex, frustrating, and crucial characters.
- Seema Sharma on Big Jim and the White Boy (2024): Speaking of new representations of Jim, Seema focused on another graphic novel adaptation, David F. Walker and Marcus Kwame Anderson’s genre-bending take on Jim and Huck before, during, and after the events of Twain’s novel. As with all of the papers on these two great sessions, she both analyzed this adaptation on its own complex terms, and used it to open up new lenses on this classic and still crucial American author and his works.
Next recap tomorrow,
Ben
PS. If you were at the conference, feel free to share your thoughts too!
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