Twain Events
Writer's Craft Workshop
April 27, 2012
Location TBA
An Evening with David Rakoff
April 27, 2012
7:00 PM
Michael P. O'Brien Athletics and Recreation Center
An Evening with David Rakoff
David Rakoff will discuss defensive pessimism and his award-winning new book, Half Empty. Photo by Paul Roossin.
About the Series
"Humor must not professedly teach, and it must not professedly preach, but it must do both if it would live forever."
With these words Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) has given us our charge. We ourselves must live forever through humor. It is the function of the Mark Twain Lecture Series on American Humor andCulture to present the wide range of topics that face all humans, specifically American, through humor and the guiding presence of America’s greatest humorist and most typical American.
About the Director of the Lecture Series
Ben Click is a full professor at St. Mary's College of Maryland, chair of the English department, and director of the Twain Lecture Series on American Humor Culture. He has given numerous lectures and scholarly papers on Mark Twain, including talks at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the International Quadrennial Conference on the State ofTwain Scholarship. He wrote a regular column, "What Would Twain Say?" for the River Gazette and has published several articles and book chapters on the teaching of writing. His current research centers on rhetorical aspects humor in literature, specifically Twain's anti-imperialist writings. He has been teaching at St. Mary's since 1998. His doctorate is from Penn State University.
When he's not doing his professional life, he enjoys playing and listening to the blues (blues guitar and boogie woogie piano), working with wood, and watching and reading about baseball. But what he enjoys most is the company of his wife, two daughters, and their laughter.
Contact Ben Click at 240-895-4253 or baclick@smcm.edu
Read Click's "What Would Mark Twain Say" Column from the River Gazette:
