Transcendental resistance : the new Americanists and Emerson's challenge
Author(s)
Bibliographic Information
Transcendental resistance : the new Americanists and Emerson's challenge
（Re-mapping the transnational : a Dartmouth series in American studies）
Dartmouth College Press : University Press of New England, c2010
- : cloth
- : pbk
- Other Title
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Transcendental resistance : the new Americanists & Emerson's challenge
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Note
Includes bibliographical references (p. [299]-312) and index
Description and Table of Contents
Description
Johannes Voelz offers a critique of the New Americanists through a stimulating and original reexamination of the iconic figure of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Voelz argues against the prevailing tendency among Americanists to see Emerson as the product of an "all-pervasive scope of cultural power." Instead he shows Emerson's philosophy to be a deft response to the requirements of lecturing professionally at the newly built lyceums around the country. Voelz brings to light a fascinating organic relationship between Emerson's dynamic style of thinking and the uplifting experience demanded by his public. This need for an audience-directed philosophy, the author argues, reveals the function of Emerson's infamous inconsistencies on such issues as representation, identity, and nation. It also poses a major counter-argument to the New Americanists' dim view of Emerson's individualism and his vision of the private man in public. Challenging the fundamental premises of the New Americanists, this study is an important, even pathbreaking guide to the future of American studies.
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