Abstract

Susan K. Harris has been following Mark Twain's 1895–96 trip through the British Empire, the trip that Twain records in his last travelogue, Following the Equator. She is working on a collection of essays tracking themes that Twain starts in Following and taking them into their manifestations today. For this, the essays combine Mark Twain studies with a form of research most similar to serious investigative journalism. But the essays are also personal narratives, introducing identities of self that do not normally figure into academic writing. The essay printed here picks up on Twain's comments about Hinduism during his visit to Benares, India, and meditates on the different personal, cultural, and temporal frameworks though which Harris and Twain view Hindu religious practice.

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