Randolph Bourne and the Politics of Cultural Radicalism

Randolph Bourne and the Politics of Cultural Radicalism PDF Author: Leslie J. Vaughan
Publisher: American Political Thought (Un
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Reassesses the short life and career of American essayist, critic, and founder of cultural radicalism Bourne (1886-1918), known today mostly for his opposition to US military involvement in Europe and warnings about the military industrial complex. Vaughan (political science, U. of Minnesota-Duluth) argues that his stance from outside establishment perspectives was not a retreat from politics as many have claimed, but a form of political engagement free from the suppositions that impede genuine debate and democratic change. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Randolph Bourne and the Politics of Cultural Radicalism

Randolph Bourne and the Politics of Cultural Radicalism PDF Author: Leslie J. Vaughan
Publisher: American Political Thought (Un
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Reassesses the short life and career of American essayist, critic, and founder of cultural radicalism Bourne (1886-1918), known today mostly for his opposition to US military involvement in Europe and warnings about the military industrial complex. Vaughan (political science, U. of Minnesota-Duluth) argues that his stance from outside establishment perspectives was not a retreat from politics as many have claimed, but a form of political engagement free from the suppositions that impede genuine debate and democratic change. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Randolph Bourne and the Politics of Cultural Radicalism

Randolph Bourne and the Politics of Cultural Radicalism PDF Author: Leslie J. Vaughan
Publisher: University Press of Kansas
ISBN: 0700631747
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
In the "little rebellion" that swept New York's Greenwich Village before World War I, few figures stood out more than Randolph Bourne. Hunchbacked and caped-the "little sparrowlike man" of Dos Passos' U.S.A.-Bourne was an essayist and critic most remembered today for his opposition to U.S. military involvement in Europe and his assertion that "war is the health of the state." A frequent contributor to The New Republic, he died in 1918 at the age of 32, arguing that a "military-industrial" complex would continue to shape the policies of the modern liberal state. Bourne is also recognized as one of the founders of American cultural radicalism, revered in turn by Marxists, anti-fascists, and the New Left. Through his writings, he debated issues that were cultural as well as political from a position he described as "below the battle," rejecting the either/or political options of his day in favor of a viewpoint that argued outside the terms set by the establishment. In her new study of Bourne's political thought, Leslie Vaughan maintains that this position was not, as others have contended, a retreat from politics but rather a different form of political engagement, freed from the suppositions that impede genuine debate and democratic change. Her analysis challenges previous readings of Bourne's politics, showing that he offered non-statist, neighborhood-based politics in America's modern cities as a practical alternative to involvement in the national state and its militarism. By demonstrating Bourne's emphasis on politics as local, multi-ethnic, and intergenerational, Vaughan shows that his thought offered a new political discourse and set of cultural possibilities for American society in an era he was the first to label as "post-modern." Returning to the influence of Nietzsche on his thought, she also explores the role Bourne played in the creation of his own myth. Eighty years later, Bourne can be seen to stand at the cusp of the modern and the post-modern worlds, as he speaks to today's multiculturalist movement. In reexamining Bourne's writings, Vaughan has located the roots of twentieth-century radical thought while repositioning Bourne at the center of debates about the nature and limits of American liberalism.

The Lyrical Left

The Lyrical Left PDF Author: Edward Abrahams
Publisher: University of Virginia Press
ISBN:
Category : Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description


Beloved Community

Beloved Community PDF Author: Casey Nelson Blake
Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press
ISBN: 0807860425
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 385

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Book Description
The "Young American" critics -- Randolph Bourne, Van Wyck Brooks, Waldo Frank, and Lewis Mumford -- are well known as central figures in the Greenwich Village "Little Renaissance" of the 1910s and in the postwar debates about American culture and politics. In Beloved Community, Casey Blake considers these intellectuals as a coherant group and assesses the connection between thier cultural criticisms and their attempts to forge a communitarian alternative to liberal and socialist poitics. Blake draws on biography to emphasize the intersection of questions of self, culture, and society in their calls for a culture of "personality" and "self-fulfillment." In contrast to the tendency of previous analyses to separate these critics' cultural and autobiographical writings from their politics, Blake argues that their cultural criticism grew out of a radical vision of self-realization through participation in a democratic culture and polity. He also examines the Young American writers' interpretations of such turn-of-the-century radicals as William Morris, Henry George, John Dewey, and Patrick Geddes and shows that this adversary tradition still offers important insights into contemporary issues in American politics and culture. Beloved Community reestablishes the democratic content of the Young Americans' ideal of "personality" and argues against viewing a monolithic therapeutic culture as the sole successor to a Victorian "culture of character." The politics of selfhood that was so critical to the Young Americans' project has remained a contested terrain throughout the twentieth century.

The Radical Will

The Radical Will PDF Author: Randolph Bourne
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520340582
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 551

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Book Description
Randolph Bourne was only thirty-two when he died in 1918, but he left a legacy of astonishingly mature and incisive writings on politics, literature, and culture, which were of enormous influence in shaping the American intellectual climate of the 1920s and 1930s. This definitive collection, back in print at last, includes such noted essays as "The War and the Intellectuals," "The Fragment of the State," "The Development of Public Opinion," and "John Dewey's Philosophy." Bourne's critique of militarism and advocacy of cultural pluralism are enduring contributions to social and political thought, sure to have an equally strong impact in our own time. In their introduction and preface, Olaf Hansen and Christopher Lasch provide biographical and historical context for Bourne's work.

Trans-national America

Trans-national America PDF Author: Randolph S. Bourne
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781646790029
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 32

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Book Description
Trans-national America, was published in 1916 in The Atlantic Monthly by Randolph Bourne.

"The Challenge of Our Time"

Author: Iris Dorreboom
Publisher: Rodopi
ISBN: 9789051833041
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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The War and the Intellectuals

The War and the Intellectuals PDF Author: Randolph Silliman Bourne
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Anarchism
Languages : en
Pages : 16

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Book Description


Untimely Papers

Untimely Papers PDF Author: Randolph Silliman Bourne
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : State, The
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
At head of title: By Randolph Bourne. Old tyrannies.--The war and the intellectuals.--Below the battle.--The collapse of American strategy.--A war diary.--Twilight of idols.--Unfinished fragment on the state.

Twentieth-Century Multiplicity

Twentieth-Century Multiplicity PDF Author: Daniel H. Borus
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
ISBN: 0742515079
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
The book describes the ways in which American thinkers and artists in the first two decades of the twentieth century challenged notions that a single principle explained all relevant phenomena, opting instead for a pluralistic world in which many truths, goods, and beauties coexisted. It argues that the bracketing of the idea that all knowledge was integrated allowed for a new appreciation of the importance of context and contingency.