Alan Gribben is a professor emeritus of English at
Auburn University at Montgomery
Auburn University at Montgomery (AUM) is a public university in Montgomery, Alabama. Established by an act of the Alabama Legislature in 1967, it is governed by the Auburn University Board of Trustees as a member of the Auburn University syste ...
in
Alabama
(We dare defend our rights)
, anthem = "Alabama (state song), Alabama"
, image_map = Alabama in United States.svg
, seat = Montgomery, Alabama, Montgomery
, LargestCity = Huntsville, Alabama, Huntsville
, LargestCounty = Baldwin County, Al ...
and a
Mark Twain
Samuel Langhorne Clemens (November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910), known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American writer, humorist, entrepreneur, publisher, and lecturer. He was praised as the "greatest humorist the United States has p ...
scholar. He was distinguished research professor from 1998 to 2001 and the Dr. Guinevera A. Nance Alumni Professor from 2006 to 2009. He engendered widespread controversy in 2011 when he announced the publication of
expurgated versions of Twain's works.
Edited version of ''Tom Sawyer'' and ''Huckleberry Finn''
Gribben published a new combined edition of Twain's ''
Tom Sawyer
Thomas Sawyer () is the titular character of the Mark Twain novel ''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876). He appears in three other novels by Twain: ''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884), ''Tom Sawyer Abroad'' (1894), and ''Tom Sawyer, Dete ...
'' (1876) and ''
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn
''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' or as it is known in more recent editions, ''The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'', is a novel by American author Mark Twain, which was first published in the United Kingdom in December 1884 and in the United St ...
'' (1884) with
NewSouth Books
NewSouth Books is an independent publishing house founded in 2000 in Montgomery, Alabama, by editor H. Randall Williams and publisher Suzanne La Rosa. Williams was the founder of Black Belt Press, working there from 1986 to 1999, and La Rosa wo ...
in February 2011. This edition replaces the word "
nigger
In the English language, the word ''nigger'' is an ethnic slur used against black people, especially African Americans. Starting in the late 1990s, references to ''nigger'' have been progressively replaced by the euphemism , notably in cases ...
" (which occurs 219 times in the original ''Huckleberry Finn'' novel) with "
slave
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
", "
Injun Joe
Mark Twain's series of books featuring the fictional characters Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn include:
#''The Adventures of Tom Sawyer'' (1876)
#''Adventures of Huckleberry Finn'' (1884)
#''Tom Sawyer Abroad'' (1894)
#''Tom Sawyer, Detective'' ...
" with "Indian Joe," and "
half-breed
Half-breed is a term, now considered offensive, used to describe anyone who is of mixed race; although, in the United States, it usually refers to people who are half Native American and half European/white.
Use by governments United States
In ...
" with "half-blood". No other changes to the original texts are planned besides these word replacements. Only 7,500 copies are planned.
Gribben stated in the foreword to the new edition that he wanted "to provide an option for teachers and other people not comfortable with 219 instances of that word". He added:
For nearly forty years I have led college classes, bookstore forums, and library reading groups in detailed discussions of ''Tom Sawyer'' and ''Huckleberry Finn'' in California, Texas, New York, and Alabama, and I always recoiled from uttering the racial slurs spoken by numerous characters, including Tom and Huck. I invariably substituted the word "slave" for Twain’s ubiquitous n-word whenever I read any passages aloud. Students and audience members seemed to prefer this expedient, and I could detect a visible sense of relief each time, as though a nagging problem with the text had been addressed.
But Gribben's view has been widely challenged.
Cindy Lovell
Cindy Lovell (born 1956) is an American educator and writer.
Life
Cindy Lovell was born in Altoona, Pennsylvania. She graduated from Stetson University with a BA and MA in Elementary Education and from The University of Iowa with a Ph.D. in Ed ...
, executive director of the Mark Twain Boyhood Home and Museum at the time of publication, said that "the book is an anti-racist book and to change the language changes the power of the book." The removal of "nigger" from the text of ''Huckleberry Finn'' has been especially controversial. According to a writer at ''
The Economist
''The Economist'' is a British weekly newspaper printed in demitab format and published digitally. It focuses on current affairs, international business, politics, technology, and culture. Based in London, the newspaper is owned by The Econo ...
'', one cannot “fully appreciate why ‘nigger’ is taboo today if you don't know how it was used back then, and you can't fully appreciate what it was like to be a slave if you don't know how slaves were addressed. The ‘visible sense of relief’ Mr Gribben reports in his listeners is not, in fact, desirable; feeling discomfort when you read the book today is part of the point of reading it.”
Gribben commented on the criticism, pointing out, for instance, that the n-word was de facto banned from many of the publications in which his critics called for its restoration: "I had to laugh whenever the professional commentators avoided pronouncing or printing the very word they were mocking me for substituting and that they are expecting public school teachers to read aloud in integrated classrooms." He suggested that Twain himself, "probably our most commercially minded author ever", might not be displeased with "a revision that would reinsert his boy books back into school classrooms and gain new readers", and cited a number of positive responses he received from teachers.
Awards
*Alumni Faculty Service Award, Auburn University at Montgomery (2005)
References
External links
Website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gribben Alan
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people)
University of Kansas alumni
University of Oregon alumni
University of California, Berkeley alumni
University of Texas at Austin faculty
Auburn University at Montgomery faculty
American academics of English literature
American male non-fiction writers
American literary critics
Literary critics of English
Journalists from Alabama