Bernard Dobski is Professor of Political Science at Assumption University, USA. He is the coeditor of Shakespeare and the Body Politic (2013) and Souls with Longing: Representations of Honor and Love in Shakespeare (2011).

• Chapter One: Introduction.- Part One.- Chapter Two: The Puzzles of Mark Twain’s Joan of Arc.- Chapter Three: Twain’s Interest in Religion & the Divine Right of Kings.- Chapter Four: From the Question of Divine Right to the Character of Sieur Louis de Conte.- Part Two.- Chapter Five: Joan’s Noble Political Career.- Chapter Six: The Maiden Head of Modernity: Joan’s Revolutionary Project.- Chapter Seven: The Human Roots of Religious Belief.- Part Three.- Chapter Eight: Speech in Personal Recollections: History, Tragedy, and Comedy.- Chapter Nine: Judging Joan.- Chapter Ten: The Queering of Joan’s Being.- Chapter Eleven: Conclusion.

“It is true that Paine revered Mark Twain. He thought him superhuman, and he loved him. He meant to convey the life of that superhuman being in its glorious fullness to his readers. The qualities and achievements for which Paine revered Mark Twain were real and worthy of reverence. … If I understand Dobski … he does discover that at his deepest depths the author of Joan of Arc is, indeed, as much a philosopher as a humorist.” (Christopher Flannery, Claremont Review of Books, Vol. 25 (2), 2025)