Huck, Jim and Jim Crow: a Workshop for Teachers

FAIN: BH-50423-11

Mark Twain Memorial (Hartford, CT 06105-6400)
Craig Hotchkiss (Project Director: March 2011 to September 2013)

Two one-week Landmarks workshops for eighty school teachers on Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, and race in post-Reconstruction America.

"Huck, Jim, and Jim Crow" consists of two one-week NEH Landmarks of American History and Culture Workshops held summer 2012 for eighty school teachers on Mark Twain, Huckleberry Finn, and race in post-Reconstruction America. The workshops explore Mark Twain and his writings in their social, political, and historical contexts. Project director Craig Hotchkiss heads a team of scholars and educators who prepare participants to teach their students about Huckleberry Finn, the important issues it addresses, and the controversies it has engendered. The program opens with a tour of the Mark Twain House in Hartford, Connecticut, where Twain lived from 1871 to 1891. The tour is led by Hotchkiss and chief curator Patricia Philippon, who introduces the museum's library, archives, and collections. Scholarly presentations begin on the first day with Kerry Driscoll (St. Joseph College) on "The Origins of Adventures of Huckleberry Finn." Other literary scholars include John Bird (Winthrop University) on the novel's use of dialect; Robert Hirst (General Editor of the Mark Twain Project, University of California at Berkeley) exploring "Mark Twain on Racism" through the author's own notes and drafts of the novel; Stephen Railton (University of Virginia) on Twain's relationship with George Washington Cable and their "Twins of Genius Tour"; Ann Ryan (Le Moyne College) on the era's representations of black men; and Bruce Michelson (University of Illinois) on the novel's ending. Further framing is provided by Wilbert Jenkins (Temple University) on African Americans during Reconstruction and the advent of Jim Crow, and Eric Lott (University of Virginia) on the blackface minstrel tradition. Curator David Pilgrim (Ferris State University) also guides teachers through the exhibition "Hateful Things," on loan from the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia.

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