2023 Quarry Farm Fellows Announced

Each year, the Center for Mark Twain Studies (CMTS) at Elmira College awards fellowships to Twain scholars from around the globe for a chance to study at Twain's summer home, Quarry Farm.

The fellowship program reflects Mark Twain's insatiable curiosity, providing scholars an opportunity to explore Twain research and creative works in a wide array of disciplines. Scholars in the field of literature and history as well as any academic or creative field are encouraged to apply. Past fellowship projects have included cultural studies, media studies, gender studies, environmental science, political science, economics, and the creative arts.

For 2023, CMTS is pleased to welcome 11 Quarry Farm Fellows to Elmira:

Uriel Abulof, Associate Professor of Political Science at Tel-Aviv University and Cornell University. Abulof studies the politics of fear, happiness, and hope. At Quarry Farm, he plans to write a scholarly sequel to Mark Twain’s novella, The Mysterious Stranger, creating a fictional but academically informed plot.

Alexander J. Ashland, Assistant Professor of English at Viterbo University, La Crosse, Wisconsin. He teaches courses in nineteenth- and twentieth-century U.S. literature and culture. During his fellowship, he plans to finish the final chapter of his upcoming book. The chapter reexamines core tenets of early documentary literature and will show how passengers, pilots, and stewards enabled writers to rearticulate the mixtures of borrowing and invention that defined “original” works of literature during the Post-Reconstruction era.

David Bianculli, TV critic, author, and teacher at Rowan University in Glassboro, New Jersey. He has been the TV critic for National Public Radio’s Fresh Air with Terry Gross since 1987. At Quarry Farm, he intends to expand on the Christian Science paper he presented at the most recent Mark Twain symposium. His analysis indicates Twain’s Christian Science is richer than its current reputation would suggest, both in its literary merits and its journalistic and religious observations.

Bernard Joseph (B.J.) Dobski, Professor of Political Science at Assumption University in Worcester, Massachusetts. He teaches courses on political philosophy, international relations, and American foreign policy. He will investigate the archives at Quarry Farm to gather information for a book-length commentary he is putting together on the political wisdom of Twain’s Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc.

Andrew Donnelly, Mellon/ACLS Public Fellow at the National Book Foundation. At Quarry Farm, he will be working on an account of the political humorists during the Reconstruction era, such as Bill Arp, Artemus Ward, Petroleum V. Nasby, Josh Billings, and Mark Twain. The project aims to tell the story of Reconstruction politics through the influential eyes of these humorists while providing literary and political context for Twain’s Reconstruction-era novel The Gilded Age: A Tale of Today.

Kumi Ikoma, Associate Professor of English at Tokyo Metropolitan University. At Quarry Farm, Ikoma will explore how Mark Twain narrates his military experience in the Confederate Army in the style of sentimentality. Her project will investigate how deeply Twain’s life in Elmira influenced his literary imagination concerning the Civil War.

Nicholas Otranto, PhD candidate in Literature at the University of Dallas, Dallas, Texas. He specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century American literature, and will work on a chapter of his dissertation exploring the intersections between Twain’s affinity for Edenic narratives, the challenges presented to him by married and family life, and the questions he asks regarding the nature of impermanence and regeneration, as presented to readers through his various writings about Adam and Eve.

James Plath, R. Forrest Colwell Endowed Chair and Professor of English at Illinois Wesleyan University, Bloomington, Illinois. At Quarry Farm, he plans to explore in greater depth the literary relationship between John Updike and Mark Twain. Plath notes several influences Twain had on Updike that have not yet been documented in Updike studies and wishes to rectify that.

Stephen Rachman, Associate Professor in the department of English at Michigan State University, East Lansing, Michigan. During his fellowship, he will build on his essay about Twain’s The £1,000,000 Bank Note. Rachman wants to explore complex terrain within Twain’s works and make a deeper assessment of the examples he used in his original essay that connect the Bank-Note story to a broader range of Twain’s works.

Kyhl Stephen, PhD candidate and graduate student at Cornell University, Ithaca, New York. He studies nineteenth-century American literature and American Studies in the Department of Literatures in English. While at Quarry Farm, he will work on a key chapter of his dissertation that focuses on Twain’s The £1,000,000 Bank Note. He asserts Twain trained the public to “befriend” him by purchasing his stories and branded merchandise. Additionally, he will use his time to conduct some archival work on Twain’s finances and commercial practices, especially after 1890.

Wynn Yarrow, professional artist. She focuses on the connections between nature and human nature. During her fellowship, she will explore Mark Twain’s relationship with his children through visual metaphor. In reading Twain’s writing about his family, it became clear to Yarrow that Twain was a deeply connected, observant father. She will respond with imagery that captures the spirit of Quarry Farm and its surrounding landscape, looking for a scene that embraces the love, wonder, and connection of family.

For additional details about the fellows and their proposed Quarry Farm Fellowship projects, see the CMTS announcement.