Ben Click
Professor of English
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Ben Click is a full professor at St. Mary’s College of Maryland, chair of the English department, director of the Writing Center, and director of the Twain Lecture Series on American Humor and Culture. His doctorate is from Penn State University, and he has been teaching at St. Mary’s since1998. He has given numerous lectures and scholarly papers on Mark Twain, including talks at the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery and the International Quadrennial Conference on the State of Twain Scholarship. He wrote a regular column, “What Would Twain Say?” for the River Gazette and has published several articles and book chapters on the teaching of writing. Most of his research centers on rhetorical aspects humor in literature, specifically Twain’s anti-imperialist writings, but he recently co-authored a book on the rhetoric of Charlie Chaplin and humor.
When he’s not doing his professional life, he enjoys playing and listening to the blues (blues guitar and boogie woogie piano), working with wood, and watching and reading about baseball. But what he enjoys most is the company of his wife, two daughters, and their laughter.