Thoreauvian Modernities

Thoreauvian Modernities PDF Author: François Specq
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 082034429X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 328

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Book Description
Does Thoreau belong to the past or to the future? Instead of canonizing him as a celebrant of “pure” nature apart from the corruption of civilization, the essays in Thoreauvian Modernities reveal edgier facets of his work—how Thoreau is able to unsettle as well as inspire and how he is able to focus on both the timeless and the timely. Contributors from the United States and Europe explore Thoreau's modernity and give a much-needed reassessment of his work in a global context. The first of three sections, “Thoreau and (Non)Modernity,” views Thoreau as a social thinker who set himself against the “modern” currents of his day even while contributing to the emergence of a new era. By questioning the place of humans in the social, economic, natural, and metaphysical order, he ushered in a rethinking of humanity's role in the natural world that nurtured the environmental movement. The second section, “Thoreau and Philosophy,” examines Thoreau's writings in light of the philosophy of his time as well as current philosophical debates. Section three, “Thoreau, Language, and the Wild,” centers on his relationship to wild nature in its philosophical, scientific, linguistic, and literary dimensions. Together, these sixteen essays reveal Thoreau's relevance to a number of fields, including science, philosophy, aesthetics, environmental ethics, political science, and animal studies. Thoreauvian Modernities posits that it is the germinating power of Thoreau's thought—the challenge it poses to our own thinking and its capacity to address pressing issues in a new way—that defines his enduring relevance and his modernity. Contributors: Kristen Case, Randall Conrad, David Dowling, Michel Granger, Michel Imbert, Michael Jonik, Christian Maul, Bruno Monfort, Henrik Otterberg, Tom Pughe, David M. Robinson, William Rossi, Dieter Schulz, François Specq, Joseph Urbas, Laura Dassow Walls.

Thoreauvian Modernities

Thoreauvian Modernities PDF Author: François Specq
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 082034429X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book

Book Description
Does Thoreau belong to the past or to the future? Instead of canonizing him as a celebrant of “pure” nature apart from the corruption of civilization, the essays in Thoreauvian Modernities reveal edgier facets of his work—how Thoreau is able to unsettle as well as inspire and how he is able to focus on both the timeless and the timely. Contributors from the United States and Europe explore Thoreau's modernity and give a much-needed reassessment of his work in a global context. The first of three sections, “Thoreau and (Non)Modernity,” views Thoreau as a social thinker who set himself against the “modern” currents of his day even while contributing to the emergence of a new era. By questioning the place of humans in the social, economic, natural, and metaphysical order, he ushered in a rethinking of humanity's role in the natural world that nurtured the environmental movement. The second section, “Thoreau and Philosophy,” examines Thoreau's writings in light of the philosophy of his time as well as current philosophical debates. Section three, “Thoreau, Language, and the Wild,” centers on his relationship to wild nature in its philosophical, scientific, linguistic, and literary dimensions. Together, these sixteen essays reveal Thoreau's relevance to a number of fields, including science, philosophy, aesthetics, environmental ethics, political science, and animal studies. Thoreauvian Modernities posits that it is the germinating power of Thoreau's thought—the challenge it poses to our own thinking and its capacity to address pressing issues in a new way—that defines his enduring relevance and his modernity. Contributors: Kristen Case, Randall Conrad, David Dowling, Michel Granger, Michel Imbert, Michael Jonik, Christian Maul, Bruno Monfort, Henrik Otterberg, Tom Pughe, David M. Robinson, William Rossi, Dieter Schulz, François Specq, Joseph Urbas, Laura Dassow Walls.

Thoreauvian Modernities

Thoreauvian Modernities PDF Author: François Specq
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820344281
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book

Book Description
Does Thoreau belong to the past or to the future? Instead of canonizing him as a celebrant of “pure” nature apart from the corruption of civilization, the essays in Thoreauvian Modernities reveal edgier facets of his work—how Thoreau is able to unsettle as well as inspire and how he is able to focus on both the timeless and the timely. Contributors from the United States and Europe explore Thoreau's modernity and give a much-needed reassessment of his work in a global context. The first of three sections, “Thoreau and (Non)Modernity,” views Thoreau as a social thinker who set himself against the “modern” currents of his day even while contributing to the emergence of a new era. By questioning the place of humans in the social, economic, natural, and metaphysical order, he ushered in a rethinking of humanity's role in the natural world that nurtured the environmental movement. The second section, “Thoreau and Philosophy,” examines Thoreau's writings in light of the philosophy of his time as well as current philosophical debates. Section three, “Thoreau, Language, and the Wild,” centers on his relationship to wild nature in its philosophical, scientific, linguistic, and literary dimensions. Together, these sixteen essays reveal Thoreau's relevance to a number of fields, including science, philosophy, aesthetics, environmental ethics, political science, and animal studies. Thoreauvian Modernities posits that it is the germinating power of Thoreau's thought—the challenge it poses to our own thinking and its capacity to address pressing issues in a new way—that defines his enduring relevance and his modernity. Contributors: Kristen Case, Randall Conrad, David Dowling, Michel Granger, Michel Imbert, Michael Jonik, Christian Maul, Bruno Monfort, Henrik Otterberg, Tom Pughe, David M. Robinson, William Rossi, Dieter Schulz, François Specq, Joseph Urbas, Laura Dassow Walls.

Thoreau and the Sociological Imagination

Thoreau and the Sociological Imagination PDF Author: Shawn Chandler Bingham
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 9780742560598
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 166

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Book Description
Thoreau and the Sociological Imagination: The Wilds of Society is the first in-depth sociological examination of the ideas of Henry David Thoreau. By exploring Thoreau's intellectual links to early social thinkers, as well as addressing mainstay Thoreauvian concerns such as the individual-society relationship, social change, and deconstructing society's idea of progress, Shawn Chandler Bingham illustrates the sophistication of Thoreau's sociological imagination, challenging readers to reexamine the disciplinary boundaries between the social sciences and the humanities. Book jacket.

The Thoreau Society Bulletin

The Thoreau Society Bulletin PDF Author: Thoreau Society
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 172

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Thoreau's Living Ethics

Thoreau's Living Ethics PDF Author: Philip Cafaro
Publisher: University of Georgia Press
ISBN: 0820336661
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Thoreau's Living Ethics is the first full, rigorous account of Henry Thoreau's ethical philosophy. Focused on Walden but ranging widely across his writings, the study situates Thoreau within a long tradition of ethical thinking in the West, from the ancients to the Romantics and on to the present day. Philip Cafaro shows Thoreau grappling with important ethical questions that agitated his own society and discusses his value for those seeking to understand contemporary ethical issues. Cafaro's particular interest is in Thoreau's treatment of virtue ethics: the branch of ethics centered on personal and social flourishing. Ranging across the central elements of Thoreau's philosophy—life, virtue, economy, solitude and society, nature, and politics—Cafaro shows Thoreau developing a comprehensive virtue ethics, less based in ancient philosophy than many recent efforts and more grounded in modern life and experience. He presents Thoreau's evolutionary, experimental ethics as superior to the more static foundational efforts of current virtue ethicists. Another main focus is Thoreau's environmental ethics. The book shows Thoreau not only anticipating recent arguments for wild nature's intrinsic value, but also demonstrating how a personal connection to nature furthers self-development, moral character, knowledge, and creativity. Thoreau's life and writings, argues Cafaro, present a positive, life-affirming environmental ethics, combining respect and restraint with an appreciation for human possibilities for flourishing within nature.

Thoreau’s Democratic Withdrawal

Thoreau’s Democratic Withdrawal PDF Author: Shannon L. Mariotti
Publisher: Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0299233936
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 241

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Book Description
Best known for his two-year sojourn at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau is often considered a recluse who emerged from solitude only occasionally to take a stand on the issues of his day. In Thoreau’s Democratic Withdrawal, Shannon L. Mariotti explores Thoreau’s nature writings to offer a new way of understanding the unique politics of the so-called hermit of Walden Pond. Drawing imaginatively from the twentieth-century German social theorist Theodor W. Adorno, she shows how withdrawal from the public sphere can paradoxically be a valuable part of democratic politics. Separated by time, space, and context, Thoreau and Adorno share a common belief that critical inquiry is essential to democracy but threatened by modern society. While walking, huckleberrying, and picking wild apples, Thoreau tries to recover the capacities for independent perception and thought that are blunted by “Main Street,” conventional society, and the rapidly industrializing world that surrounded him. Adorno’s thoughts on particularity and the microscopic gaze he employs to work against the alienated experience of modernity help us better understand the value of Thoreau’s excursions into nature. Reading Thoreau with Adorno, we see how periodic withdrawals from public spaces are not necessarily apolitical or apathetic but can revitalize our capacity for the critical thought that truly defines democracy. In graceful, readable prose, Mariotti reintroduces us to a celebrated American thinker, offers new insights on Adorno, and highlights the striking common ground they share. Their provocative and challenging ideas, she shows, still hold lessons on how we can be responsible citizens in a society that often discourages original, critical analysis of public issues.

Henry David Thoreau in Context

Henry David Thoreau in Context PDF Author: James S. Finley
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108500978
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 655

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Book Description
Well known for his contrarianism and solitude, Henry David Thoreau was nonetheless deeply responsive to the world around him. His writings bear the traces of his wide-ranging reading, travels, political interests, and social influences. Henry David Thoreau in Context brings together leading scholars of Thoreau and nineteenth-century American literature and culture and presents original research, valuable synthesis of historical and scholarly sources, and innovative readings of Thoreau's texts. Across thirty-four chapters, this collection reveals a Thoreau deeply concerned with and shaped by a diverse range of environments, intellectual traditions, social issues, and modes of scientific practice. Essays also illuminate important posthumous contexts and consider the specific challenges of contextualizing Thoreau today. This collection provides a rich understanding of Thoreau and nineteenth-century American literature, political activism, and environmentalist thinking that will be a vital resource for students, teachers, scholars, and general readers.

The Thoreau Society Bulletin

The Thoreau Society Bulletin PDF Author: Thoreau Society
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description


Thoreau Society Booklet

Thoreau Society Booklet PDF Author: Thoreau Society
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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The Thoreau Centennial

The Thoreau Centennial PDF Author: Walter Roy Harding
Publisher: SUNY Press
ISBN: 9780873950152
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 138

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Book Description
The papers gathered in this volume were among those delivered at the Thoreau Centennial meetings at the Pierpont Morgan Library, the Community Church, and New York University's Hall of Fame in New York City on May 5 and 6, 1962, under the sponsorship of the Thoreau Society, and under the leadership of Professor Lewis Leary of Columbia University, then President of the Thoreau Society. The wide variety in subject and approach of these papers is in itself ample indication of Thoreau's multifaceted appeal today: Carl F. Hovde, Associate Professor of English at Columbia University, studies Thoreau's conception of character in his first book and demonstrates why character development was always secondary to theme in his writings. Joseph J. Moldenhauser, Assistant Professor of English at the University of Texas, comments on Thoreau as a literary stylist and on his use of imagery and figurative language. Walter Harding, Chairman of the English Department at the State University College at Geneseo, New York, and Secretary of the Thoreau Society, in an adaptation of the final chapter of his forthcoming biography, presents the facts about Thoreau's last days. Raymond Adams, Professor of English at the University of North Carolina and dean of present-day Thoreau scholars, comments on the recent surge of interest in Thoreau's life and writings. J. Lyndon Shanley, Professor of English at Northwestern University and former President of the Thoreau Society, re-examines the persistent claims of disillusionment and disappointment surrounding Thoreau's final years. Reginald L. Cook, Chairman of the American Literature Department at Middlebury College, Director of the Breadloaf School of English, demonstrates the affinities of two of our greatest American authors, Thoreau and Frost. Howard Mumford Jones, Professor Emeritus of English at Harvard University, examines Thoreau as an aphorist and a moralist in the light of his Journal. The Rev. Donald S. Harrington, minister of the Community Church in New York City, discusses Thoreau's philosophy as a guide for life today. Raymond Adams discusses why Thoreau, a century after his death, was finally chosen for inclusion in the Hall of Fame. His Excellency Braj Kumar Nehru, Ambassador to the United States from India, in recognition of Thoreau's influence on one of the greatest men of our century, Mahatma Gandhi, pays tribute to Thoreau. It has taken Henry David Thoreau a full century to attain his present high peak of fame and honor, but from the wide range of this collection of papers we can see how diversified that fame is. Above all, he is honored as a Transcendentalist--as a spiritual pioneer who points the way to a better life and as one who is certain that if we but work for it, we can attain that better life here on earth.