UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Pragmatism and the Gift: Toward a Charismology of Dynamic Gifts in American Literature and Religion DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in English by Tae Sung Dissertation Committee: Professor Steven Mailloux, Chair Professor John H. Smith Professor Brook Thomas 2014 © 2014 Tae Sung TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Acknowledgments iii Curriculum Vitae v Abstract of the Dissertation vii Chapter 1 “A gospel of power” 1 Toward A Charismological Framework for Dynamic Gifts Chapter 2 “A golden impossibility” 38 The Rhetoric of Dynamic Gifts in Ralph Waldo Emerson Chapter 3 “A new sphere of power” 75 The Hermeneutics of Dynamic Gifts in William James Chapter 4 “Are not these gifts worth the giving?” 119 Religious Pragmatists on Gratitude Bibliography 175 ii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I would like to thank my committee members, Steve Mailloux, Brook Thomas, and John Smith, who have shaped my mind in unaccountable ways, so much so that I can only call their mentorship over the years, a gift. The same can be said of Jack Miles and Rich Mouw, whose unbending support and encouragement continue to baffle me. My musketeer counterparts, Brian Garcia and Ali Meghdadi, have been like brothers to me through it all. Thanks also to my teachers at UCI: Elizabeth Allen, Mike Clark, Laura O’Connor, Claire Kim, Jayne Lewis, Hugh Roberts, Jim Steintrager, and Michael Szalay. The same also to my colleagues and students at Vanguard University. Near the end, just when I needed some recognition that my research could reach a broader audience, I was awarded the Donald and Dorothy Strauss Dissertation Fellowship and the Michael and Stacey Koehn Critical Theory Assistantship, without which I could not have completed this project. Randy Williams, wherever you are fighting the good fight, I have not forgotten you and the impact your friendship and course on prison autobiographies made. To my high school English teachers, Ann and Joe Palicki, thanks for planting the seeds. I wish Richard Kroll and my grandfather were still around to read this. Were it not for them, none of this would have even been an option for me. To my family I owe so much more than a dissertation, but here it is. Thanks to my Oikos and Ekko families, who have sustained me in so many ways. To my extended family and relatives, my uncles, aunts, cousins, and in-laws, your belief and expectation created the room for me to grow. My brother, Matthew Sung, came at a crucial time to take care of my children to allow me to complete the last chapter. Your generosity and iii commitment to family always remind me about what’s most important in life. I haven’t always succeeded in making my parents proud, but I have never ceased trying to transform their sacrifices into something worth it all. I sometimes joke that this could have been over much sooner had not my children, Logen and Kol, decided to show up in the middle of a Ph.D. program. But the opposite may in fact be more true. All of this is to prepare you to be and do better. The cover of this dissertation should really include the name Hanna Sung alongside mine. But spouses probably deserve more credit than that. She is my co-author in the story that continues to unfold in surprising and meaningful and glorious ways. All of this was to try to keep up with you. iv CURRICULUM VITAE Tae Sung Department of English University of California, Irvine EDUCATION 2007-2014 Ph.D. English, UC Irvine Irvine, CA Emphasis Certificate: Critical Theory 2004-2006 M.A. Theology, Fuller Theological Seminary Pasadena, CA Emphasis: Biblical Studies and Theology 2004-2006 M.A. English, UC Irvine Irvine, CA 1997-2001 B.A. Literature in English, UC San Diego La Jolla, CA AWARDS Donald & Dorothy Strauss Dissertation Fellowship, English, UCI (2013-2014). Michael &Stacey Koehn Endowed Fellowship, Critical Theory, UCI (2013-2014). Letter of Recognition for Outstanding Teaching Evaluations, Composition, UCI (2009). Regents’ Fellowship, UCI (2007-2012). Frederick W. and Bernice S. Bush Scholarship of Theology, Fuller (2005-2006). ACADEMIC INTERESTS American Literature: religious & intellectual history; African & Asian American fiction. Critical Theory: history of theory & rhetoric; pragmatism, phenomenology. Asian American Studies: history and fiction, modern Korean history and culture. Theology: religion, culture, & society; philosophical hermeneutics; pneumatology. DISSERTATION COMMITTEE Steven Mailloux (chair) President’s Professor of Rhetoric (LMU) [email protected] John H. Smith Professor of German (UCI) [email protected] Brook Thomas Chancellor’s Professor of English (UCI) [email protected] PUBLICATIONS “Belief and Poetry: II. Early Modern to the Present.” Co-authored with Michael P. Clark. The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics. Fourth edition. Ed. Roland Greene. Princeton: Princeton University Press. 2012. 134-137. SELECTED PRESENTATIONS “The Religious Turn in American Pragmatism,” presentation at the Western division of The Conference on Christianity and Literature at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA (2014). “‘That is always best which gives me to myself.’ The Language of Divine Grace and Dynamic Gifts in Ralph Waldo Emerson,” lecture at Westmont College, Santa Barbara, CA (2013). v “The Rhetoric of Gratitude in W. E. B. Du Bois and Sui Sin Far,” presentation at International Society for the History of Rhetoric in Bologna, Italy (2011). “Kenneth Burke and Ralph Ellison,” guest lecture for English 102D, “The Age of Ralph Ellison,” undergraduate course by Professor Michael Szalay at UCI (2011). “For What Has Already Been Given: Religion and the Rorty Papers,” presentation at UC Humanities Research Institute in celebration of the Richard Rorty archives at UCI (2010). “Pragmatists Who Pray: Toward a Charismological Reading of William James’s Pragmatism,” presentation at Rhetoric Society of America in Minneapolis, MN (2010). TEACHING EXPERIENCE 08/2009-06/2014 Adjunct Professor of English; Vanguard University, Costa Mesa, CA 09/2008-06/2013 Teaching Assistant in English, Religious Studies, & Asian American Studies; UCI, Irvine, CA 09/2006-05/2007 Adjunct Instructor of English; Azusa Pacific University, Azusa, CA OTHER EXPERIENCE 09/2013-05/2014 Organizer of Critical Theory Undergraduate Conference 09/2011-05/2012 Organizing member of UCI’s “Literature and Religion” Conference 09/2010-06/2011 Graduate Student Representative of Rhetoric & Composition 09/2009-06/2010 Research Assistant to Jack Miles for Religious Studies and The Norton Anthology of World Religions 10/2009-12/2009 Archivist for Richard Rorty Papers, Critical Theory Archive (UCI) 09/2009-06/2010 Graduate Student Colloquium ASSOCIATIONS American Academy of Religion C19: The Society of Nineteenth-Century Americanists Conference on Christianity and Literature International Society for the History of Rhetoric Modern Language Association Rhetoric Society of America LANGUAGES Native: English, Korean Reading: Greek, Hebrew, Latin Studying: French, German vi ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Pragmatism and the Gift: Toward a Charismology of Dynamic Gifts in American Literature and Religion By Tae Sung Doctor of Philosophy in English University of California, Irvine 2014 Professor Steven Mailloux, Chair This dissertation proposes a charismological reading of dynamic gifts in American culture, developing a critical yet constructive theory of gifts that can then be applied to a broad range of American writers and texts. By drawing on the work of literary pragmatists such as Ralph Waldo Emerson and William James, who intentionally situate themselves in intermediary positions between religion and secularism, I offer a more nuanced approach to the so-called “religious turn” in critical theory and literary studies. The aim of this project is to contribute to recent debates about theories of the gift and, in so doing, contributes to the fields of American literature and religion, both of which are all too often divided by narratives of secularization or an aggressive religious return. Following Jeffrey Stout’s example in Democracy and Tradition and his definition of democratic piety as the proper acknowledgement of the sources of our existence and progress through life, this charismological approach to gift-theories is an attempt to engage the dynamic spiritual and secular sources that are inextricably part of American vii culture. As Heidegger did with the question of being, rather than focus on particular gifts as objects of circulation in culture, I am interested in a more fundamental flow of dynamic power that comes from inspirational gifts that are difficult to analyze as mere objects of exchange. By shifting the interpretive framework away from what Derrida called an “economy of exchange,” which cannot but result in the annulment of the gift through debt and obligation, this approach offers an alternative, non-economic framework that interprets what I call “dynamic gifts” as sources of power, agency, and inspiration. viii CHAPTER 1 “A Gospel of Power” Toward A Charismological Framework for Dynamic Gifts Thou sorrow, venom Elfe. Is this thy play, To spin a web out of thyselfe To catch a Fly? For Why? […] To tangle Adams race In’s stratigems To their Destructions, spoil’d, made base By venom things Damn’d Sins. But mighty, Gracious Lord Communicate Thy Grace to breake the Cord, afford Us Glorys Gate And State.1 A gospel of power […] A gospel of courage, practical, an optimistic, an American gospel! Away with fear! Daring! Forward! A leap in the dark! Away with doubt! Every hundred dollar bill of theory must be convertible into the small change of particular fact, of desirable achievements! Away with metaphysics! Welcome to religions!2 1 Edward Taylor (1642?-1729), from “Upon a Spider Catching a Fly.” The title of this chapter comes from a phrase early in John Winthrop’s sermon, “A Model of Christian Charity” (1630). 2 From The Failure (Un Uomo Finito), written by the Italian pragmatist Giovanni Papini. Quoted in Richardson’s William James, 479; italics in original.