In the Fall of 2023, The American Vandal Podcast from the Center For Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College released its 8th season, "Criticism LTD." Across sixteen episodes and more than thirty interviews, producer and host Matt Seybold weaves together the reception of recent books by John Guillory, Jed Esy, Andy Hines, and Bruce Robbins with the political economy of contemporary higher education, the institutional history of the Chicago Critics, the flourishing of para-academic publications like Brittle Paper and Public Books, the feud between Matthew Arnold and Mark Twain, and critical forays into artificial intelligence, social media, and podcasting itself. For this event, Matt reflects upon what he learned from "Criticism LTD," what he might've missed, and how the work addresses the ongoing defunding of higher education.
Jim Phelan, Director of Project Narrative, will give a short response to this talk and then the dialogue will continue with Q&A from the audience.
"What Matt Seybold is doing with this damn podcast is boggling, every new episode just another parting of fog and reaching for throat." - Seth Brodsky, Director of Richard & Mary L. Gray Center For Arts & Inquiry, University of Chicago
"The boldest, most provocative, and most compelling articulation of Mark Twain's enduring relevance that exists in the media and scholarly landscape of this moment." - Henry Wonham, Professor of English, University of Oregon & President of the Mark Twain Circle of America
Matt Seybold is Associate Professor of American Literature & Mark Twain Studies at Elmira College, where he is also resident scholar at the Center For Mark Twain Studies and the director of the Media Studies, Communications, & Design program. He is the founding editor of MarkTwainStudies.org and the executive producer of The American Vandal Podcast. He is also co-editor (with Michelle Chihara) of The Routledge Companion to Literature & Economics and (with Gordon Hutner) of a 2019 special issue of American Literary History on "Economics & Literary Studies in the New Gilded Age." Other recent publications can be found in American Literary Realism, Leviathan, Los Angeles Review of Books, Mark Twain Annual, and The Cambridge Companion To Literature & Economics.
Zoom Information:
https://osu.zoom.us/j/92582185611?pwd=MFpGNmU0UWhuQTJya1pDY2c4MUd6dz09
Meeting ID: 925 8218 5611
Password: 838658