Why?

Probably the most interesting/ unique thing I've seen done with Huck Finn so far is to turn the entire book into barcodes... Why? Who knows. But it is pretty cool, you gotta admit.

Here's a screen shot:

Hey it worked!

I commented on that quotes blog that I mentioned in my last post and the author commented back already! Here's our short but relevant conversation!

I wrote: "I find it almost ironic, after reading this quote by the author, that Alan Gribben’s latest edition of Huckleberry Finn has replaced the word “nigger” in a new edition of Huckleberry Finn with “slave” so as not to offend potential readers."

And Richard Scott replied: "Hi, Bri, and welcome to Uphill Writing. A lot of what is going on with Mark Twain’s work would not fit with his philosophy, I think. But then, he DID stipulate that his autobiography should not be released until a hundred years had passed."

Yay for social discovery!

Mark Twain

I found this blog with a number of quotes by Mark Twain through Google Blog Search. I thought this particular quote was somewhat relevant (and slightly ironically) related to my subject of study, the censorship of both Twain's novel and/ or the N word in his novel. The quote?

“Substitute ‘damn’ every time you’re inclined to write ‘very;’ your editor will delete it and the writing will be just as it should be.” - Mark Twain

Huck Finn Reading Group

That's right! On goodreads. It's private, but I've sent a request to join along with a message about my interest in joining and a link to my blog (forgot to copy the message so I could paste it here before I sent it via goodreads). Thought that'd be an awesome social discovery connection to make especially in relation to my thesis for my chapter of our ebook (see my previous post on my chapter).

Huck's Bloggophere and Cussin'

2. My purpose is to explore LION (Literature Online), a literary database, in order to pursue my research on connections between current hot topic discussions of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn in the online writing environment and higher education.

3. LION (Literature Online). This is a resource indexing multiple databases about English poetry and drama, some fiction, and Shakespeare. It has reference works and lists of selected web resources.

4. I searched "Huckleberry Finn" and scrolled down to a list of criticism on the text. The title of one article caught my attention but they didn't have the text, only the "full record". I might've been tempted to count this as a dead end but I'll never tell. However I was so interested in what the article had to say that I went to the library website, looked up the journal that the article was in - Chronicle of Higher Education - and found we had the full text online through EBSCO host so I linked through the journal with the rest of the publication information and then scrolled down till I found this article. I clicked the full text link and there it was!

5. "The Redacted 'Huckleberry Finn': 'Chronicle' Bloggers Respond." Chronicle of Higher Education 57.21 (2011): B4. Print.

6. A compilation of sorts of blog posts by different bloggers from this journal on the deletion of the 'n' word in Huckleberry Finn by editor Alan Gribben of NewSouth. 

7. This article is all about the hottest topic of discussion about Huck Finn today, that Mark Twain scholar, Alan Gribben, has replaced the word "nigger" in a new edition of Huckleberry Finn with "slave" so as not to offend readers and open up potential audiences (i.e. high schoolers) that the book might not have had before. I followed the lead in the article to the Chronicle's original blog posts on the subject and found a listing of several. I'm interested now to know what audiences outside of higher education are having this debate, if any, and what they're saying. 

Researching Huck Finn

Today I went to OER's site to find out more about Huck Finn. After narrowing my search to the humanities and searching the terms "Huckleberry Finn," I found a plethora of resources for exploration. First I found two courses taught at MIT with their syllabi and course information (Course 1 | Course 2). This is valuable information because it is so recent and gives me some idea of where to head with my own research. One of the courses had links to other resources that might be helpful including this awesome site from the University of Virgina that places Mark Twain in his context. I also stumbled upon the site for the Mark Twain museum which I didn't even think of including on my site till now! I've created a "list" with my diigo account to start accumulating these resources so I can delve into them at more depth when I'm ready and add them to my site as I do.

Friending Huck: Making Mark Twain's Novel Universally Accessible

Photo by Jiaren Lau | Flickr

I have valued friends that don't read. That's what they tell me. They are digitally literate: they have deep social network available at a twitch of their fingers on their mobile phones and computers, they can find any information they need at the click of a button, but they "don't read" ...at least not literature.

That's why I want to create an online platform that makes The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain and the discussion surrounding it available and interesting to people who "don't read". Literature professors always encourage us to understand the discussion surrounding a work before we add our own voices to that discussion and I want to create a platform for the average person to have all that information at their fingertips in one place, not having to understand how library research works and the scholarly terms thrown around in critical articles in order to be able to read and participate in a meaningful conversation about the novel. I also hope this to be an excellent resource for those teaching about the novel in public and homeschool environments.