Cultures of Solitude : Loneliness, Limitation, Liberation / Ina Bergmann, Stefan Hippler (Eds.)

Ina Bergmann / Stefan Hippler (eds.) Ina Bergmann / Stefan Hippler (eds.) Stefan Hippler (eds.) (eds.) Hippler Stefan / Cultures of Solitude This collection of essays comprises technology, pathology, anti-consumerism, Cultures of Solitude cultural analyses of practices of eremitism simplification, and environmentalism. and reclusiveness in the USA, which are Solitaries can be read as trailblazers for inseparably linked to the American ideals an alternative future or as symptoms of a of individualism and freedom. Covering pathological society. Loneliness – Limitation – Liberation a time frame from the eighteenth to the Bergmann Ina twenty-first century, the essays study cultural products such as novels, poems, plays, songs, paintings, television shows, The Editors films, and social media, which represent Ina Bergmann is Associate Professor of the costs and benefits of deliberate with- American Studies at the University of drawal and involuntary isolation from Würzburg, Germany. society. Thus, this book offers valuable Stefan Hippler is Assistant Professor of contributions to contemporary cultural American Studies at the University of discourses on privacy, surveillance, new Würzburg, Germany. Cultures of Solitude Cultures ISBN 978-3-631-67907-4 267907_Bergmann_gr_A5HCk PLE.indd 1 24.02.17 KW 08 13:42 Ina Bergmann / Stefan Hippler (eds.) Ina Bergmann / Stefan Hippler (eds.) tefan Hippler (eds.) (eds.) tefan Hippler S / Cultures of Solitude This collection of essays comprises technology, pathology, anti-consumerism, Cultures of Solitude cultural analyses of practices of eremitism simplification, and environmentalism. and reclusiveness in the USA, which are Solitaries can be read as trailblazers for inseparably linked to the American ideals an alternative future or as symptoms of a of individualism and freedom. Covering pathological society. Loneliness – Limitation – Liberation a time frame from the eighteenth to the Bergmann Ina twenty-first century, the essays study cultural products such as novels, poems, plays, songs, paintings, television shows, The Editors films, and social media, which represent Ina Bergmann is Associate Professor of the costs and benefits of deliberate with- American Studies at the University of drawal and involuntary isolation from Würzburg, Germany. society. Thus, this book offers valuable Stefan Hippler is Assistant Professor of contributions to contemporary cultural American Studies at the University of discourses on privacy, surveillance, new Würzburg, Germany. Cultures of Solitude Cultures 267907_Bergmann_gr_A5HCk PLE.indd 1 24.02.17 KW 08 13:42 Cultures of Solitude Ina Bergmann/Stefan Hippler (eds.) Cultures of Solitude Loneliness – Limitation – Liberation Bibliographic Information published by the Deutsche Nationalbibliothek The Deutsche Nationalbibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche Nationalbibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available in the internet at http://dnb.d-nb.de. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bergmann, Ina editor. | Hippler, Stefan, 1960- editor. Title: Cultures of solitude : loneliness, limitation, liberation / Ina Bergmann, Stefan Hippler (eds.). Description: Frankfurt am Main ; New York : Peter Lang, 2017. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2017000780 | ISBN 9783631679074 Subjects: LCSH: American literature—History and criticism. | Solitude in literature—United States. | Solitude in popular culture—United States. Classification: LCC PS169.S58 C85 2017 | DDC 810.9/353—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017000780 Printed with the kind assistance of Siblings Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation for the Humanities. Cover Image: Alois Bergmann-Franken, Der alte Loy [Old Man Loy], ca. 1925, oil on canvas, 50 cm x 35 cm, private collection, photo: Birgit Wörz. Printed by CPI books GmbH, Leck ISBN 978-3-631-67907-4 (Print) E-ISBN 978-3-653-07105-4 (E-PDF) E-ISBN 978-3-631-70815-6 (EPUB) E-ISBN 978-3-631-70816-3 (MOBI) DOI 10.3726/978-3-653-07105-4 Open Access: This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial NoDerivatives 4.0 unported license. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ © Ina Bergmann/Stefan Hippler, 2017 Peter Lang GmbH Internationaler Verlag der Wissenschaften Berlin Peter Lang – Berlin ∙ Bern ∙ Bruxelles ∙ New York ∙ Oxford ∙ Warszawa ∙ Wien This publication has been peer reviewed. www.peterlang.com Table of Contents Ina Bergmann and Stefan Hippler Acknowledgments ��9 I Solitude and American Studies Ina Bergmann Cultures of Solitude: Reflections on Loneliness, Limitation, and Liberation in the US ��13 II Early Solitude: Language, Body, and Gender Svend Erik Larsen “Alone, Without a Guide”: Solitude as a Literary and Cultural Paradox ��45 Kevin L. Cope The Enigmatic and the Ecological: American Late Enlightenment Hermits and the Pursuit of, in Addition to Happiness, Permanence ��61 Coby Dowdell “The Luxury of Solitude”: Conduct, Domestic Deliberation, and the Eighteenth-Century Female Recluse ��79 III Solitude in the Nineteenth Century: Gender, Politics, and Poetics Ina Bergmann “Away to Solitude, to Freedom, to Desolation!”: Hermits and Recluses in Julia Ward Howe’s The Hermaphrodite �� 101 Margaretta M. Lovell Thoreau and the Landscapes of Solitude: Painted Epiphanies in Undomesticated Nature �� 123 Hélène Quanquin “The World to Each Other”: The Joint Politics of Isolation and Reform among Garrisonian Abolitionists �� 139 6 Table of Contents IV Solitude from the Nineteenth to the Twentieth Century: Society, Spirituality, and Religion Ira J. Cohen Three Types of Deep Solitude: Religious Quests, Aesthetic Retreats, and Withdrawals due to Personal Distress �� 155 Kevin Lewis American Lonesome: Our Native Sense of Otherness �� 169 V Solitude in the Twentieth Century: Space, Gender, and Ethnicity Randall Roorda “Mind Is the Cabin”: Substance and Success in Post-Thoreauvian Second Homes �� 187 Nassim Winnie Balestrini Socially Constructed Selfhood: Emily Dickinson in Full-Cast and Single-Actor Plays �� 203 Jochen Achilles Changing Cultures of Solitude: Reclusiveness in Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street �� 217 VI Solitude from the Twentieth to the Twenty-First Century: Space, Identity, and Pathology Clare Hayes-Brady “It’s What We Have in Common, This Aloneness”: Solitude, Communality, and the Self in the Writing of David Foster Wallace �� 231 Rüdiger Heinze Alone in the Crowd: Urban Recluses in US-American Film �� 245 VII Solitude Today: Technology, Community, and Identity Stefan Hippler Solitude in the Digital Age: Privacy, Aloneness, and Withdrawal in Dave Eggers’s The Circle �� 259 Table of Contents 7 Scott Slovic Going Away to the Wilderness for Solitude … and Community: Ecoambiguity, the Engaged Pastoral, and the ‘Semester in the Wild’ Experience �� 275 Robert J. Coplan and Julie C. Bowker Should We Be Left Alone? Psychological Perspectives on the Implications of Seeking Solitude �� 287 Contributors �� 303 Index �� 305 Acknowledgments This collection of essays comes out of an international and interdisciplinary conference on “Cultures of Solitude,” held at the University of Würzburg, Germany in July 2015� The conference was funded by the Bavarian American Academy, Munich, and by the Department of American Studies, University of Würzburg, Germany� Of the original nine papers given at the conference, seven were selected for publication in this volume� Nine additional contributions by internationally renowned scholars of American Studies and/or experts of American cultures of solitude have been commissioned solely for this collection� Initial funding for research conducted by Ina Bergmann at the American An- tiquarian Society, Worcester, MA, and at Widener Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA was provided by the “Forschungsfonds” of the Faculty of the Humanities, University of Würzburg, Germany during 2014/15� During 2015/16, Ina Bergmann was awarded an Andrew W� Mellon Foundation Fellowship from The Huntington Library, San Marino, CA, USA to conduct on site research� We thank all the authors for their brilliant contributions to this volume, their enthusiasm for the project, and their excellent cooperation� We also wish

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