yours truly, huck finn. >> andrew levy, author of "huck finn's america.he era that shaped twain's masterpiece." thank you to the viewers and to our other guest jocelyn chadwick of harvard. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] >> watch washington journal's special holiday authors week service speech during -- featuring new writers. the author and former chair of the ohio democratic party discusses his book, fading democracy, user's manual for america. watch washington journal at 7:00 eastern starting with our authors week service. -- series. >> c-span is your unfiltered view of government. we are funded by these television vision companies -- television companies and more. >> it is extremely rare. friends still have to be. when you are connected, you are not alone. >> cox sports c-span as a public service along with these other providers, giving you a front row seat to democracy. >> weeknights at 9:00

yours truly, huck finn. >> andrew levy, author of "huck finn's america.he era that shaped twain's masterpiece." thank you to the viewers and to our other guest jocelyn chadwick of harvard. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] to set up the second panel.

yours truly, huck finn. >> andrew levy, author of "huck finn's america.he era that shaped twain's masterpiece." thank you to the viewers and to our other guest jocelyn chadwick of harvard. [captions copyright national cable satellite corp. 2023] [captioning performed by the national captioning institute, which is responsible for its caption content and accuracy. visit ncicap.org] ♪ ♪ >> weeknights at 9:00 eastern c-span's encore presentation of the 10 part series, books that shaped america, the partnership with the library of congress explores key pieces of literature that had a profound impact on our country. we feature the 1980 novel my tinea, it addresses the immigrant experience and women's issue at the time. we have the english university professor of the university of. and on :00 eastern on c-span or go to c-span.org/-- 9:00 eastern on c-span or go to books that shaped america. nonfiction authors are interviewed on their latest oks. on 8:00 eastern, oscar with his book turnaround time, efforts to revive the company and the future of aviation. he is

the stakes are obviously much, much higher in huck finn, and huck is like he actually believes it's morally wrong to help and enslaved person. like, he believes this in his bones and you he plays fromf the instruction he's gotten, and he fights with himself the whole time. he is quite convinced he's going to go to hell. he says i'm going to go to hell for helping this man, because it's wrong to help a slave. and to hear you put it that way, it makes me think mark twain was doing, you know, and this is a hot were to say in a public school, antiracist work even then, right? because it's exactly what you'rg saying, is that huck was taking on thehe hard work as a boy. the hard work of dismantling his own entrapment in the system, right? the very system that in case millions of people in bondage here it also encased all of those who held them in bondage and all of those who stood by as the bondage happened. and so, i've never talked about it. i'm an english teacher.i u i've never bought that up but have to own my own art on this, right? it's like we're all on her own rivers, you know, witnessing

and we conflate huck finn and tom sawyer, the really different stories. i wonder what you think as someone who engages with literature in the context of the history space. now, you know, what does mark twain offer us the opportunity to do? you know, that allow us to engage in conversations and investigations that could be helpful to us at this time. it's it allows for us to see real americans. and i think that's the piece when we're talking about what do history teachers do? there's there's a tendency to think that we just talk about great men in history and that is the arc of all of history. if you really love history, if you really love social studies, if you love econ, if you love poly sci, you start to ask really difficult questions like what about not the great person? but if we're talking about, for example, george washington, what about the soldiers who had to fight under george washington? what was it like for them? what was it like thinking about their families? and i think what twain offers is really a huge glimpse of this antebellum period. thi

what are some of the gifts we get from huck finn and mark twain? >> one of t the biggest gifts in terms of twain again going back to that idea of the snapshot of what does it mean to be in america, really dismantling this idea of universal reality that it's the answer you have in the northeast versus what you would have in the northwest or the south versus on the west coast. is that the same definition, that to me speaks to the history of the country and also to what makes teaching history rather difficult. i think there's something to be said for how in this hyper politicized time we like to pretend that teaching history is a very easy task especially when you understand the arc of history is multiple operating at the same time and the person who truly loves history is looking for the stories not just of the great men of history but all of the stories that comprise the ark and unfortunately because of the way the history has been disseminated and passed many of the stories were missing but it then makes them incomplete and the gift of this text as

it's probably because it scares us we may be in in between right now when we look at huck finn today what is the biggest error we make what is one of them? what are we doing wrong? because clearly we are not doing certain things right. >> one of the mistakes we make is we focus so much on the language. and the language is jarring but would look at for example the use of the n word it's jarring for many of us.it but it is only symptomatic. it's only evidence of a larger structure. language is born out of a reality. huck finn is born out of a time the language is not going it's born out of economic structure since born out of au culture. that is the hard part for many of us to really understand. it is one of the things we are talking about racism and it talking about structural racism we are tired what the history of racism even the history of slavery. those are very difficult things to teach because you have to reconstruct the time. you have to reconstruct what were the laws. you have to construct? what were the customs and attitudes? and those are uncomfortable. so in many respects,

i think it's probably less of a challenge than teaching all of huck finn.w you talked about that last week but still ating for why is it there? host: that's what i was going to ask you. guest: i think we admire cather's embrace brace of eastern european immigrants but it's like appease mans pace virginia black story, which there's no reason to tell that story about blind darn over that happened in the book except in some ways that fantasy about black subservience and black primitivism makes way for the bo bohemian immigrants to be part of american. that's like the exclusion of african-americans from citizenship. it was troubling. i think the immigrant characters get in this part by that exclusion of blackness. certainly there were some black homesteaders in nebraska but they were pushed off. host: george is in palmetto, florida. george, good evening. caller: hi, thanks for taking my call. i just wanted to share with you an experience they had a few years ago in red cloud. i've visited often. my wife is a red cloud native and we were in re cloud doing a conc

i think it's probably less of a challenge than teaching all of huck finn. know you talked about that last week but still ating for why is it there? host: that's what i was going to ask you. guest: i think we admire cather's embrace brace of eastern european immigrants but it's like appease mans pace virginia black story, which there's no reason to tell that story about blind darn over that happened in the book except in some ways that fantasy about black subservience and black primitivism makes way for the bo bohemian immigrants to be part of american. that's like the exclusion of african-americans from citizenship. it was troubling. i think the immigrant characters get in this part by that exclusion of blackness. certainly there were some black homesteaders in nebraska but they were pushed off. host: george is in palmetto, florida. george, good evening. caller: hi, thanks for taking my call. i just wanted to share with you an experience they had a few years ago in red cloud. i've visited often. wife is a red cloud native and we were in red cloud doing a co

i think it's probably less of a challenge than teaching all of huck finn. know you talked about that last week but still ating for why is it there? host: that's what i was going to ask you. guest: i think we admire cather's embrace brace of eastern european immigrants but it's like appease mans pace virginia black story, which there's no reason to tell that story about blind darn over that happened in the book except in some ways that fantasy about black subservience and black primitivism makes way for the bo bohemian immigrants to be part of american. that's like the exclusion of african-americans from citizenship. it was troubling. i think the immigrant characters get in this part by that exclusion of blackness. certainly there were some black homesteaders in nebraska but they were pushed off. host: george is in palmetto, florida. george, good evening. caller: hi, thanks for taking my call. i just wanted to share with you an experience they had a few years ago in red cloud. i've visited often. my wife is a red cloud native and we weren red cloud doing a c

mark twain's novel huck finn was published in 1880 four. poems by emildickinson was published in 1890. frederick jackson turner's the frontier in american history was published in 1893. the red badge of courage by stephen crane was released in 1895. it was thereuring the civil war. peter: a of those books are availablen e website, c-span.org/books that shaped america. you can see the entire list at the library of congress -- that the library of congress came up with there. next call is stephen in west palm beach, florida. stephen, go ahead. >> can you hear me? peter: we are listening. >> mr. rosen, which you are calling, and i'm sure many lawyers called his pragmatism is what i called sedition. i'm wondering, for example, and it doesn't surprise me, i didn't realize until now, i have forgotten that theodore roosevelt was the one that appointed him to supreme court because mr. roosevelt didn't seem to have too much concern about the constitution either. and i'm sure you know what i mean. i was saying that one of the things i was thinking, th

mark twain's novel huck finn was published in 1880 four.ms by emily dickinson was published in 1890. frederick jackson turner's the frontier in american history was published in 1893. the red badge of courage by stephen crane was released in 1895. it was there during thcivil war. peter: all of those books are available on the website, c-span.org/books thashed america. you can see the entire list at the library of congress -- that the library of congress came up with there. next call is stephen in west palm beach, florida. stephen, go ahead. >> can you hear me? peter: we are listening. >> mr. rosen, which you are calling, and i'm sure many lawyers called his pragmatism is what i called sedition. i'm wondering, for example, and it doesn't surprise me, i didn't realize until now, i have forgotten that theodore roosevelt was the one that appointed him to supreme court because mr. roosevelt didn't seem to have too much concern about the constitution either. and i'm sure you know what i mean. i was saying that one of the things i was thinking, th

people who wanted more rectitude in the book were not finding it in the adventures of huckleberry finnat the time, it also has a real connotation on race, and twain's mindset of that era when he wrote it that it was showing huck and jim coming from different kinds of oppression, huck has a mean father, and jim growing up enslaved. but they become a dynamic duo as they go down the mississippi. why it is controversial today is because the n-word is using it quite bit, some people want it bad because of that, and they say that it cannot really be a classic because of that, and then twain was willing to do dialect. any time a white author starts dealing in dialect in any culture it gets tricky and sensitive, particularly now. ernest hemingway said all american literature emanates from "the adventures of huckleberry finn." it continues to live on and to be discussed and debated, and twain is one of our great writers because of his body of work, but this was the one that has lasted the test of time and is still red and talked about. but less so now because of that. >> what is interesting, an

to have more rectitude in a book you were not finding it in twine's -- and mark twain's huckleberry finnthere is a connotation on race and in twain's my set of that era that it was showing huck and jim coming from different kinds of oppression. huck's was a mean father and jim's being enslaved. they form a friendship into dynamic duo as they go down the mississippi. why it is controversial today though, is because the n-word is used in it quite a bit. some people want to abandon it because of the use of that. -- ban it because of the use of that. it cannot be a classic because of that. mark twain was willing to do dialect and anytime a white author starts dealing with dialects of any culture it gets very tricky and sensitive. particularly now. artist hemingway said all american literature emanates from the adventures of huckleberry finn. it continues to live on and be discussed and debated. mark twain as one of our writers. because of his body of work. this was the one that has lasted the test of time and it is read and taught, but less so now. >> because of that. what is interesting, i