THE INSTITUTE for ADVANCED STUDY Minutes Meeting of The
Total Page：16
File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb
Load more
Recommended publications
-
Whitman's 1855 “Leaves of Grass” As the Emodiment of Emerson's
the Unitarian Universalist School of the Graduate Theological Union At the Beginning of a Great Career: Whitman’s 1855 “Leaves of Grass” as the Emodiment of Emerson’s “The Poet” James C. (Jay) Leach Leach wrote this paper in May 2001 for a Unitarian Universalist History class. “I am not blind to the worth of the wonderful gift of ‘Leaves of Grass.’ I find it the most extraordinary piece of wit & wisdom that America has yet contributed.” from Emerson’s 21 July 1855 letter to Whitman “I was simmering, simmering, simmering; Emerson brought me to a boil.” Whitman on Emerson July 1855. Lydia Jackson (Lidian) Emerson, an ardent abolitionist who had been active in the anti- slavery movement for years, (beginning at a time when her husband was still maintaining his posi- tion of “wise passiveness,”) stepped outside of their home in Concord, Massachusetts on the route of Paul Revere’s celebrated ride, and draped the gate and fence posts in black for the July 4th holiday. It was her personal expression of somber protest against the continued presence of slavery in the United States. Her funereal bunting matched the mood in the Emerson household: Lidian was not in good health; Emerson’s brother William continued to struggle with debilitating headaches; even his friend Thoreau was ailing. Despite his earlier equivocation, by this point it had been 11 years since Ralph Waldo Emerson had relinquished his detached role as scholar-poet and actively assumed the mantle of vocal abolitionist as well. His lectures, in addition to addressing his usual philosophical and aesthetic topics, were now often about the evils of slavery. -
The Resilience of Pilgrimage Ecopoetics and Slow Travel from Chaucer’S the Canterbury Tales to Jack Kerouac’S on the Road
humanities Article “[A]n Exterior Air of Pilgrimage”: The Resilience of Pilgrimage Ecopoetics and Slow Travel from Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales to Jack Kerouac’s On the Road Susan Signe Morrison Department of English, Texas State University, 601 University Dr., San Marcos, TX 78666, USA; [email protected] Received: 1 September 2020; Accepted: 28 September 2020; Published: 8 October 2020 Abstract: While the Beats can be seen as critical actors in the environmental humanities, their works should be seen over the longue durée. They are not only an origin, but are also recipients, of an environmentally aware tradition. With Geoffrey Chaucer and Jack Kerouac, we see how a contemporary American icon functions as a text parallel to something generally seen as discrete and past, an instance of the modern embracing, interpreting, and appropriating the medieval. I argue that The Canterbury Tales by Chaucer influenced Kerouac’s shaping of On the Road. In the unpublished autograph manuscript travel diary dating from 1948–1949 (On the Road notebook), Kerouac imagines the novel as a quest tale, thinking of pilgrimage during its gestation. Further, Kerouac explicitly cites Chaucer. His novel can be seen not only in the tradition of Chaucer, but can bring out aspects of pilgrimage ecopoetics in general. These connections include structural elements, the spiritual development of the narrator, reliance on vernacular dialect, acute environmental awareness, and slow travel. Chaucer’s influence on Kerouac highlights how certain elements characteristic of pilgrimage literature persist well into the modern period, in a resilience of form, language, and ecological sensibility. Keywords: pilgrimage; Geoffrey Chaucer; The Canterbury Tales; Jack Kerouac; On the Road; ecocriticism; ecopoetics; slow travel; vernacular Artfully citing the poet and translator Peter Stambler, Hong Cheng refers to the intertextual links among seemingly disparate authors, time periods, and literary works as “’encounters, perhaps conversations’” (Cheng 2006, p. -
Trilling's Students in the 1950S Josh
Letters of Recommendation: Trilling’s Students in the 1950s Josh Lambert Lionel Trilling’s career as myth The story of Lionel Trilling’s career has been told so many times—by memoirists, literary scholars, intellectual and cultural historians, critics, and essayists of every conceivable stripe—that it might be fair to call it one of the central myths of American intellectual culture in the twentieth century. In outline, it usually goes something like this: Trilling (1905-1975), the son of Orthodox Jewish, unusually Anglophilic immigrants, grew up in Queens, matriculated at Columbia, and in his twenties began to publish short stories and reviews in The Menorah Journal, a Jewish magazine. In the early 1930s, he turned decisively away from the journal and what it represented: without ever desiring to deny that he was Jewish, he sought less parochial venues in which to explore questions about literature and politics, and explicitly denied that Jewishness influenced or inspired him.1 In the years that followed, he finished and published his dissertation on Matthew Arnold, and gained a reputation for reviews and essays in Partisan Review and other magazines. He was awarded a professorship in English at Columbia and tenured in that position (which many accounts emphasize was a first for a Jewish person).2 In the 1940s, he published a handful of short stories and a novel, The Middle of the Journey (1947). Reviews of the novel were tepid, and some readers questioned why Trilling had conspicuously avoided identifying any of its main characters as Jews.3 He did not publish any fiction after that, but went on to produce increasingly widely read essays and collections of criticism treating major touchstones of European and American culture, which included The Liberal Imagination (1950), The Opposing Self (1955), Beyond Culture (1965), and Sincerity and Authenticity (1972). -
O F W I L L I a M J a M E S S T R E A
S t r e a m s o f W i l l i a m J a m e s The Newsletter of William James Society Volume 2 • Issue 2 • Summer 2000 S t r e a m s o f W i l l i a m J a m e s The Newsletter of William James Society Volume 2 • Issue 2 • Summer 2000 Randall H. Albright, Editor 423 Marlborough St. • Boston, MA 02115 • USA e-mail = [email protected] www.pragmatism.org/societies/william_james.htm Advisory Board: Jason Gary Horn Chair, HumanitiesAdvisory Division, Board: Gordon College Jonathan Levin D. Micah Hester Assoc. Professor ofAsst. English, Prof. Columbia of Biomedical University Frank Pajares Ethics, School of Medicine, Professor, EducationMercer Division, University Emory University Jason Gary Horn Chair, Humanities Division, Gordon College Jonathan Levin Assoc. Professor of English, Columbia University Frank Pajares Prof., Education Division, Emory University John Shook Assist. Prof. of Philosophy, Oklahoma State University William James in Brazil, 1865 Table of Contents William James Society WebSite............................... inside cover by Randall Albright William James Society Polysemiality, Style, and Arationality...................................... 1 by Michel Weber WebSite A View of Yosemite.................................................................. 5 by Randall Albright by William James Cards from California.......................................................... 6-7 John Shook, WebMaster of the from William James www.pragmatism.org is currently also running the official Simultaneous Worlds .............................................................. 8 William James Society WebSite: quotes from William James www.pragmatism.org/societies/ The Meaning of Truth draft manuscript page.......................... 9 william_james.htm by William James, later released in book form in 1909 Nørretranders and James...................................................... 10 Anybody can currently do the following: by Randall Albright • download a version of our current Adobe Acrobat flier; My Stroll with William James and Jacques Barzun .............. -
Quentin Anderson Papers, 1935-2002 (Bulk Dates 1960-2000) MS# 1434
Quentin Anderson Papers, 1935-2002 (Bulk dates 1960-2000) MS# 1434 ©2008 Columbia University Library SUMMARY INFORMATION Creator Quentin Anderson, 1912-2003 Title and dates Quentin Anderson Papers 1935-2003 (Bulk dates 1960-2000) Abstract The papers document the life and work of author, Columbia University professor, and literary critic, Quentin Anderson. This collection contains his personal and professional correspondence, his writings and research notes, documentation of his professional involvements, and some personal materials. Size 19 linear feet (33 document boxes, 7 index card boxes) Call number MS# 1434 Location Columbia University Butler Library, 6th Floor Rare Book and Manuscript Library 535 West 114th Street Quentin Anderson Papers New York, NY 10027 Language(s) of material English Biographical Note Quentin Anderson, literary critic, cultural historian, and professor emeritus, began his long relationship with Columbia University as a student in 1934, after a brief enrollment at Dartmouth. Anderson received his B.A. from Columbia in 1937, then matriculated to Harvard, obtaining his M.A. in 1939. He returned to Columbia to begin teaching in the Department of English and Comparative Literature in 1939, earning his Ph.D. in 1953, attaining full professorship in 1961. In recognition of his exceptional service to the University, Anderson was appointed the Julian Clarence Levi Professor in the Humanities Emeritus in 1978. Upon his retirement in 1981, Anderson continued to be actively involved in his field, both as an author and as a participant in several scholarly organizations. Anderson was born in 1912 in Minnewaukan, North Dakota, the eldest son of author and playwright Maxwell Anderson.