By John Johnston
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Don't expect a Survivor-like finish when Uncle Tom's Cabin goes up against Huckleberry Finn on the University of Cincinnati campus.

"We won't end up voting one of them off the island," says Jonathan Kamholtz, associate professor of English.

STOWE FESTIVAL

There will be even more talk about Harriett Beecher Stowe and her life during February as the Mercantile Library kicks off its month-long Stowe Festival.   A highlight will be an appearance by Pulitzer Prize winner Joan Hedrick. Ms. Hedrick won the 1995 Pulitzer for her biography Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life. She will discuss the book and the two decades Stowe lived in Cincinnati 7 p.m. Feb. 25 at the Mercantile Library, 414 Walnut St., downtown. $40.   Other festival events (all at the library): • 4 p.m. Feb. 4: Unveiling of Cincinnati sculptor Walter Driesbach's bust of Stowe. Free. • 7 p.m. Feb. 12: Premiere of selections from the one-act musical drama Harriet, written by Janet Vogt and Mark Friedman. $10. • 7 p.m. Feb. 19: University of Cincinnati English professor Martin Wechselblatt lectures on the sentimental novel tradition and its influence on Stowe's career. Free. Information: 621-0717 or www.mercantilelibrary.com.

There will, however, be plenty of discussion about the merits of the two 19th-century literary heavyweights in the graduate-level class Mr. Kamholtz co-teaches this quarter and in the Ropes Series of lectures that begins today with a talk by Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Jane Smiley.

The class and lecture series were organized to mark the Ohio bicentennial and the 150th anniversary of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. The book, published in 1852, helped galvanize anti-slavery sentiment in the years before the Civil War. The author's views on slavery were shaped during the time she lived in Cincinnati, from 1832 to 1850.

"The famous truth is that Uncle Tom's Cabin sold more than any other book in America except the Bible until the early years of the 20th century," Mr. Kamholtz says. It outsold Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn (published in 1885 ), even though the latter generally has been recognized as the greater literary work.

Both books have been praised and panned over the years for their racial depictions.

Uncle Tom's Cabin fell from favor in the 20th century in part because of changing literary tastes, Mr. Kamholtz says.

Until relatively recently, people didn't want to read sentimental fiction that argued for social action.

A 1996 article that Jane Smiley wrote for Harper's magazine was "enormously influential," Mr. Kamholtz says.

It pointed out shortcomings in the way Huckleberry Finn dealt with race relations, while noting the virtues of Uncle Tom's Cabin, "a book that plainly sees slavery as wrong, and doesn't compromise."

"Ideas about literature have changed over the last couple of decades that make Uncle Tom's Cabin much more readable again," Mr. Kamholtz says. For one, readers are more receptive to female writers.

But Huckleberry Finn also deserves a place among the 19th century's greatest novels, Mr. Kamholtz believes. Among its strengths, it taps into a core of American life, "that too much culture and domesticity, too much home life is bad for you and you've got to be free."

"Whether (the book) is able to see that freedom as applying equally to black and white is a real question."

The Ropes Series of free lectures will be at 8 p.m. in Room 127 McMicken Hall, unless noted otherwise.

Today: Jane Smiley presents "Is Uncle Tom's Cabin a `Well-Made' Novel?"

Feb. 4: Robert S. Levine, who has written extensively on 19th-century African-American literature, presents "Harriet Beecher Stowe and African-American Culture: A Romance."

Feb. 10: Novelist Percival Everett presents "Three Blacks That Way."

Feb. 18: Author Joycelyn Moody presents "Three Black Women's Responses to Uncle Tom's Cabin."

Feb. 19: An informal talk with Joycelyn Moody at 3 p.m. in the Elliston Poetry Room.

Feb. 25: Author Shelley Fisher Fishkin presents "Race and the Politics of Memory: Mark Twain and Paul Laurence Dunbar."

Also, at 3 p.m. Feb. 26 in McMicken Hall Room 043, Shelley Fisher Fishkin and Herbert Woodward Martin will present an informal talk and performance titled "Masks, Sermons and Songs: Rereading Dunbar Today."

E-mail jjohnston@enquirer.com