Past Events

We are pleased to welcome Elizabeth A. Petrino, professor of English and director of Liberal Studies, Bellarmine College at Fairfield University, Fairfield, Conn., on Monday, February 24, 2025, at 7 pm, for “Percival Everett’s James and Mark Twain’s ‘Jim’: Reimagining and Subverting Mark Twain’s Masterpiece.” The program will take place in the Program Room, Radcliffe Building, Perrot Memorial Library.

Percival Everett’s most recent book, James, published in 2024 and winner of the National Book Award as well as the Greenwich Reads Together 2024 pick, boldly retells the story of Jim, an enslaved person who is peripheral in Mark Twain’s novel, Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, but becomes the central narrator of his book. In doing so, Everett explores and reimagines the era of slavery in America, including the period of the Civil War. Through the eyes of the intelligent, well-read, and incisive “James,” readers experience the horrors and degradation of slavery as well as identify with the power and complexity of the human condition.

Drawing on the role of Twain’s novel in American literary history, this presentation will explore recent critical interpretations and controversies about Huckleberry Finn that might have informed Everett’s novel. Through a discussion of selected scenes, the audience is invited to consider how Everett reframes Twain’s original story both to pay homage to him and to challenge our views of America by invoking a beloved American writer.

Elizabeth Petrino is professor of English and director of Liberal Studies on the Bellarmine campus at Fairfield University. She earned her B.A. at the State University of New York at Buffalo and received her Ph.D. at Cornell University. She has authored several books, including Emily Dickinson and Her Contemporaries: Women’s Verse in America, 1820-1885 (UPNE, 1998), and edited with Jocelyn Boryczka Jesuit and Feminist Education: Intersections in Teaching and Learning for the Twenty-first Century (Fordham, 2012), which won the national Alpha Sigma Nu Award for 2013 in “Professional Studies.” In addition, she edited with Mary Louise Kete Lydia Sigourney: Critical Essays and Cultural Views (University of Massachusetts Press, 2018). Recently, her articles have appeared in ESQ, ISLE, and Studies in American Humor. Currently, she is working on Emily Dickinson’s reading and use of literary allusion, particularly in relation to Transatlantic women writers.

Registration is required. Click here to register.

To check out a copy of James, visit our catalog. If you would like to purchase a copy of the book, visit the Athena Books website.

For more information, please contact Judy Sgammato at 203-637-1066 x15 or judys@perrotlibrary.org.