Mark Silk heads the Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public life at Trinity College in Hartford, Conn. He is the author of Unsecular Media: Making News of Religion in America and other books about religion in the United States. As Mark Twain grew older he became increasingly skeptical about human beings and their institutions. “There is no sadder thing than a young pessimist,” Twain wrote, “except an old optimist.” In this Dan Tham video Silk discusses Twain’s skepticism about religion.

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She was described as “the most noticed figure among American Muslim women” in a 2010 New York Times article. At 48, Ingrid Mattson struck me as a mirthful, sassy person, whose eruptive laughs were punctuated with sips from her Diet Coke. Her résumé is impressive. Mattson was the first woman and first convert to Islam to lead the Islamic Society of North America (2006 – 2010) and she is currently the director of the Duncan Black Macdonald Center for the Study of Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations at Hartford Seminary. We had the chance to sit down with Mattson and discuss being Canadian, converting to Islam and how the world’s perception of Muslims dramatically changed after 9/11.

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Let me just start by saying that Steve Courtney, publicist and guide at the Mark Twain House & Museum, does not believe in ghosts. But in the sleepy Hartford pre-dawn, Team Twain was intrepidly coming into contact with the paranormal. Between the dim lighting situation, the flapping window shade and the seated porcelain dolls, Twain’s home in Hartford would swiftly set off any spectral activity radar system. Watch if you dare, as Courtney tells us spine-chilling tales of horror that even Twain would approve of.

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Driscoll is an English professor at St. Joseph’s College in West Hartford, and she’s spent the last 10 years working on a book about Mark Twain’s relationship and multitudinous references to American Indians. While most of Twain’s backwater attitudes changed throughout his lifetime to reflect a more enlightened, tolerant man, he remained prejudiced against Indians. Twain’s remarks against Indians range from obscure references to “a polished-up court of Commanches” in A Connecticut Yankee to the recognizable “murdering half-breed” Injun Joe character in The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

“I’m not convinced I’ll ever get to the bottom of this,” Driscoll said. She did, however, share a few of her theories.

For one, Twain grew up in pro-slavery Missouri, but he had regular interactions with African Americans. The same can’t be said about Indians.

“There was a sense of familiarity to black people,” Driscoll said. “Twain never had a corresponding experience with Indians. They’re kind of an empty space into which imaginary things can seep.”

And after his marriage to Olivia Langdon in 1870 Twain adopted the role of male protector. In his fiction he typecast Indians as capable—metaphorically if not always literally—of sexual violence. “Indians are lustful,” Driscoll said. “They’re sexual predators.”

Another plausible reason is that Twain’s mother, Jane, “hated Indians to her dying breath.” Her ancestors had been massacred in Kentucky, which could be why Twain reacted to them so negatively.

Alyssa

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Andrew Walsh, associate director of Trinity College’s Leonard E. Greenberg Center for the Study of Religion in Public Life and a former Hartford Courant reporter, is an expert on Hartford immigration. He kindly took us around his city, reiterating a theme we’ve encountered before: immigrants are vital to the comeback of communities. Walsh has seen the meteoric rise of Jamaican immigrants to positions of success as well as the developing entrepreneurship of Vietnamese and Puerto Rican newcomers. In this video, Walsh brings us to El Mercado, a Latino supermarket on Park Street with offerings from, among others, the Mexican, Dominican and Peruvian communities. He describes the role immigration plays in Hartford’s future.

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Craig Hotchkiss is the Education Program Manager at the Mark Twain House and Museum in Hartford, Conn. In this video, Hotchkiss addresses some of the topics we’ve been dealing with, including race and sexual orientation, as it relates to Mark Twain.

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