A Political Companion To Henry David Thoreau

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A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau

Author : Jack Turner
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 081317287X
Total Pages : 496 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau by : Jack Turner

Download or read book A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau written by Jack Turner and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2009-07-17 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The writings of Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) have captivated scholars, activists, and ecologists for more than a century. Less attention has been paid, however, to the author’s political philosophy and its influence on American public life. Although Thoreau’s doctrine of civil disobedience has long since become a touchstone of world history, the greater part of his political legacy has been overlooked. With a resurgence of interest in recent years, A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau is the first volume focused exclusively on Thoreau’s ethical and political thought. Jack Turner illuminates the unexamined aspects of Thoreau’s political life and writings. Combining both new and classic essays, this book offers a fresh and comprehensive understanding of Thoreau’s politics, and includes discussions of subjects ranging from his democratic individualism to the political relevance of his intellectual eccentricity. The collection consists of works by sixteen prominent political theorists and includes an extended bibliography on Thoreau’s politics. A Political Companion to Henry David Thoreau is a landmark reference for anyone seeking a better understanding of Thoreau’s complex political philosophy.

Thoreau: Political Writings

Author : Henry David Thoreau
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 9780521476751
Total Pages : 220 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (767 download)

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Book Synopsis Thoreau: Political Writings by : Henry David Thoreau

Download or read book Thoreau: Political Writings written by Henry David Thoreau and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1996-05-23 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Thoreau's political writing is intensely personal and direct. Both his life and work focus uncompromisingly on the question 'how should I live?', and for Thoreau, no element of day-to-day existence is left untouched by moral and political issues. This 1996 edition of Thoreau's political essays includes 'Civil Disobedience', selections from Walden, 'Life Without Principle', and the anti-slavery addresses, such as 'Slavery in Massachusetts'. In her introduction, Nancy L. Rosenblum places the essays in the context of Thoreau's life of self-examination, and the debates about the abolition of slavery, and she analyses the themes of citizenship and resistance that have made Thoreau an enduring influence in political philosophy and practice.

A Political Companion to Herman Melville

Author : Jason Frank
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781306118163
Total Pages : 444 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (181 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to Herman Melville by : Jason Frank

Download or read book A Political Companion to Herman Melville written by Jason Frank and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herman Melville is widely considered to be one of America's greatest authors, and countless literary theorists and critics have studied his life and work. However, political theorists have tended to avoid Melville, turning rather to such contemporaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau to understand the political thought of the American Renaissance. While Melville was not an activist in the traditional sense and his philosophy is notoriously difficult to categorize, his work is nevertheless deeply political in its own right. As editor Jason Frank notes in his introduction to "A Political Companion to Herman Melville," Melville's writing "strikes a note of dissonance in the pre-established harmonies of the American political tradition." This unique volume explores Melville's politics by surveying the full range of his work -- from "Typee" (1846) to the posthumously published "Billy Budd" (1924). The contributors give historical context to Melville's writings and place him in conversation with political and theoretical debates, examining his relationship to transcendentalism and contemporary continental philosophy and addressing his work's relevance to topics such as nineteenth-century imperialism, twentieth-century legal theory, the anti-rent wars of the 1840s, and the civil rights movement. From these analyses emerges a new and challenging portrait of Melville as a political thinker of the first order, one that will establish his importance not only for nineteenth-century American political thought but also for political theory more broadly.

Henry David Thoreau in Context

Author : James S. Finley
Publisher : Cambridge University Press
ISBN 13 : 1108500978
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (85 download)

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Book Synopsis Henry David Thoreau in Context by : James S. Finley

Download or read book Henry David Thoreau in Context written by James S. Finley and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-04-07 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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 Political Thought of Henry David Thoreau

Author : Jonathan McKenzie
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813166322
Total Pages : 215 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis The Political Thought of Henry David Thoreau by : Jonathan McKenzie

Download or read book The Political Thought of Henry David Thoreau written by Jonathan McKenzie and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2016-01-22 with total page 215 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In The Political Thought of Henry David Thoreau, Jonathan McKenzie analyzes not only Thoreau's well-known works but also his journals and correspondence to provide a fresh portrait of the Sage of Walden as a radical individualist."--Publisher description.

Henry David Thoreau

Author : Laura Dassow Walls
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
ISBN 13 : 022659937X
Total Pages : 670 pages
Book Rating : 4.2/5 (265 download)

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Book Synopsis Henry David Thoreau by : Laura Dassow Walls

Download or read book Henry David Thoreau written by Laura Dassow Walls and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2018-09-28 with total page 670 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Walden. Yesterday I came here to live." That entry from the journal of Henry David Thoreau, and the intellectual journey it began, would by themselves be enough to place Thoreau in the American pantheon. His attempt to "live deliberately" in a small woods at the edge of his hometown of Concord has been a touchstone for individualists and seekers since the publication of Walden in 1854. But there was much more to Thoreau than his brief experiment in living at Walden Pond. A member of the vibrant intellectual circle centered on his neighbor Ralph Waldo Emerson, he was also an ardent naturalist, a manual laborer and inventor, a radical political activist, and more. Many books have taken up various aspects of Thoreau's character and achievements, but, as Laura Dassow Walls writes, "Thoreau has never been captured between covers; he was too quixotic, mischievous, many-sided." Two hundred years after his birth, and two generations after the last full-scale biography, Walls renews Henry David Thoreau for us in all his profound, inspiring complexity. Drawing on Thoreau's copious writings, published and unpublished, Walls presents a Thoreau vigorously alive, full of quirks and contradictions: the young man shattered by the sudden death of his brother; the ambitious Harvard College student; the ecstatic visionary who closed Walden with an account of the regenerative power of the Cosmos. We meet the man whose belief in human freedom and the value of labor made him an uncompromising abolitionist; the solitary walker who found society in nature, but also found his own nature in the society of which he was a deeply interwoven part. And, running through it all, Thoreau the passionate naturalist, who, long before the age of environmentalism, saw tragedy for future generations in the human heedlessness around him. "The Thoreau I sought was not in any book, so I wrote this one," says Walls. The result is a Thoreau unlike any seen since he walked the streets of Concord, a Thoreau for our time and all time.--Dust jacket.

A Political Companion to Flannery O'Connor

Author : Henry T. Edmondson III
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813169410
Total Pages : 398 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to Flannery O'Connor by : Henry T. Edmondson III

Download or read book A Political Companion to Flannery O'Connor written by Henry T. Edmondson III and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2017-07-21 with total page 398 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Acclaimed author and Catholic thinker Flannery O'Connor (1925--1964) penned two novels, two collections of short stories, various essays, and numerous book reviews over the course of her life. Her work continues to fascinate, perplex, and inspire new generations of readers and poses important questions about human nature, ethics, social change, equality, and justice. Although political philosophy was not O'Connor's pursuit, her writings frequently address themes that are not only crucial to American life and culture, but also offer valuable insight into the interplay between fiction and politics. A Political Companion to Flannery O'Connor explores the author's fiction, prose, and correspondence to reveal her central ideas about political thought in America. The contributors address topics such as O'Connor's affinity with writers and philosophers including Eric Voegelin, Edith Stein, Russell Kirk, and the Agrarians; her attitudes toward the civil rights movement; and her thoughts on controversies over eugenics. Other essays in the volume focus on O'Connor's influences, the principles underlying her fiction, and the value of her work for understanding contemporary intellectual life and culture. Examining the political context of O'Connor's life and her responses to the critical events and controversies of her time, this collection offers meaningful interpretations of the political significance of this influential writer's work.

A Political Companion to W. E. B. Du Bois

Author : Nick Bromell
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813174929
Total Pages : 376 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to W. E. B. Du Bois by : Nick Bromell

Download or read book A Political Companion to W. E. B. Du Bois written by Nick Bromell and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2018-03-16 with total page 376 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Literary scholars and historians have long considered W. E. B. Du Bois (1868--1963) an extremely influential writer and a powerful cultural critic. The author of more than one hundred books, hundreds of published articles, and founding editor of the NAACP journal The Crisis, Du Bois has been widely studied for his profound insights on the politics of race and class in America. An activist as well as a scholar, Du Bois proclaimed, "I stand in utter shamelessness and say that whatever art I have for writing has been used always for propaganda for gaining the right of black folk to love and enjoy." In A Political Companion to W. E. B. Du Bois, Nick Bromell assembles essays from both new and established scholars from a variety of disciplines to explore Du Bois's contributions to American political thought. The contributors establish a conceptual context within which to read the author, revealing how richly and variously he engaged with the aesthetic and theological modalities of political thinking and action. This volume further reveals how Du Bois's work challenges and revises contemporary political theory, providing commentary on the author's strengths and limitations as a theorist for the twenty-first century. In doing so, it helps readers gain an understanding of how Du Bois's work and life continue to stimulate lively and constructive debate about the theory and practice of democracy in America.

A Political Companion to James Baldwin

Author : Susan J. McWilliams
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813169925
Total Pages : 396 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to James Baldwin by : Susan J. McWilliams

Download or read book A Political Companion to James Baldwin written by Susan J. McWilliams and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2017-11-15 with total page 396 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In seminal works such as Go Tell It on the Mountain, Notes of a Native Son, and The Fire Next Time, acclaimed author and social critic James Baldwin (1924--1987) expresses his profound belief that writers have the power to transform society, to engage the public, and to inspire and channel conversation to achieve lasting change. While Baldwin is best known for his writings on racial consciousness and injustice, he is also one of the country's most eloquent theorists of democratic life and the national psyche. In A Political Companion to James Baldwin, a group of prominent scholars assess the prolific author's relevance to present-day political challenges. Together, they address Baldwin as a democratic theorist, activist, and citizen, examining his writings on the civil rights movement, religion, homosexuality, and women's rights. They investigate the ways in which his work speaks to and galvanizes a collective American polity, and explore his views on the political implications of individual experience in relation to race and gender. This volume not only considers Baldwin's works within their own historical context, but also applies the author's insights to recent events such as the Obama presidency and the Black Lives Matter movement, emphasizing his faith in the connections between the past and present. These incisive essays will encourage a new reading of Baldwin that celebrates his significant contributions to political and democratic theory.

A Political Companion to Philip Roth

Author : Claudia Franziska Brühwiler
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813169291
Total Pages : 298 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to Philip Roth by : Claudia Franziska Brühwiler

Download or read book A Political Companion to Philip Roth written by Claudia Franziska Brühwiler and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2017-06-23 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philip Roth is widely acknowledged as one of the twentieth century's most prolific and acclaimed writers. Roth's first novel, Goodbye, Columbus (1959), received the National Book Award, and he followed this stunning debut with more than thirty books -- earning another National Book Award, two National Book Critics Circle awards, three PEN/Faulkner Awards, and the Pulitzer Prize. Throughout his career, Roth delighted in controversy but often denied that he sought a role as a public intellectual. His statements and vigorous support of suppressed writers in communist Czechoslovakia, however, tell a different story. In A Political Companion to Philip Roth, established and rising scholars explore the myriad political themes in the author's work. Several of the contributors examine Roth's writings on Jewish identity, Zionism, and American attitudes toward Israel, as well as the influence of his work in other countries. Others investigate Roth's articulation of the roles of gender and sexuality in US culture. This interdisciplinary examination offers a more complete portrait of Roth as a public intellectual and cultural icon. Not only will it fill a gap in scholarship, but it will also provide a broader perspective on the nature and purpose of the acclaimed writer's political thought.

A Political Companion to Marilynne Robinson

Author : Shannon L. Mariotti
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813167787
Total Pages : 328 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to Marilynne Robinson by : Shannon L. Mariotti

Download or read book A Political Companion to Marilynne Robinson written by Shannon L. Mariotti and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2016-11-08 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Marilynne Robinson is arguably one of the most important writers of our time. Her voice resonates across the richly imagined American landscapes within which she grounds her stories of love and loss, alienation and belonging, injustice and redemption. Robinson's award-winning body of work -- including Gilead, winner of the 2005 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and the National Book Critics Circle Award; Home, winner of the Orange Prize and the Los Angeles Times Book Prize; and Lila, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award -- has cultivated admiration all over the world, offering readers new and profound interpretations of the meanings of transience, presence, convention, and resistance. In A Political Companion to Marilynne Robinson, Shannon L. Mariotti and Joseph H. Lane Jr. assemble both rising and established political theorists to explore the juxtaposition of Robinson's nonfiction works and her novels, and to examine their connections to contemporary political issues. The collection analyzes Robinson's writings on American democracy, community, and freedom, and it includes an engrossing interview with the author specifically conducted for this volume. From an exploration of the democratic potential in being a "housekeeper of homelessness" to a study of models of action against racial injustice, this volume provides fascinating new insights into Robinson's work and how it reflects and reassesses American political culture and theory.

A Political Companion to Herman Melville

Author : Jason Frank
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813143888
Total Pages : 456 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to Herman Melville by : Jason Frank

Download or read book A Political Companion to Herman Melville written by Jason Frank and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2014-01-07 with total page 456 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Herman Melville is widely considered to be one of America's greatest authors, and countless literary theorists and critics have studied his life and work. However, political theorists have tended to avoid Melville, turning rather to such contemporaries as Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau to understand the political thought of the American Renaissance. While Melville was not an activist in the traditional sense and his philosophy is notoriously difficult to categorize, his work is nevertheless deeply political in its own right. As editor Jason Frank notes in his introduction to A Political Companion to Herman Melville, Melville's writing "strikes a note of dissonance in the pre-established harmonies of the American political tradition." This unique volume explores Melville's politics by surveying the full range of his work -- from Typee (1846) to the posthumously published Billy Budd (1924). The contributors give historical context to Melville's writings and place him in conversation with political and theoretical debates, examining his relationship to transcendentalism and contemporary continental philosophy and addressing his work's relevance to topics such as nineteenth-century imperialism, twentieth-century legal theory, the anti-rent wars of the 1840s, and the civil rights movement. From these analyses emerges a new and challenging portrait of Melville as a political thinker of the first order, one that will establish his importance not only for nineteenth-century American political thought but also for political theory more broadly.

A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson

Author : Alan Levine
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813134323
Total Pages : 502 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson by : Alan Levine

Download or read book A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson written by Alan Levine and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2011-09-16 with total page 502 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From before the Civil War until his death in 1882, Ralph Waldo Emerson was renowned—and renounced—as one of the United States’ most prominent abolitionists and as a leading visionary of the nation’s liberal democratic future. Following his death, however, both Emerson’s political activism and his political thought faded from public memory, replaced by the myth of the genteel man of letters and the detached sage of individualism. In the 1990s, scholars rediscovered Emerson’s antislavery writings and began reviving his legacy as a political activist. A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson is the first collection to evaluate Emerson’s political thought in light of his recently rediscovered political activism. What were Emerson’s politics? A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson authoritatively answers this question with seminal essays by some of the most prominent thinkers ever to write about Emerson—Stanley Cavell, George Kateb, Judith N. Shklar, and Wilson Carey McWilliams—as well as many of today’s leading Emerson scholars. With an introduction that effectively destroys the “pernicious myth about Emerson’s apolitical individualism” by editors Alan M. Levine and Daniel S. Malachuk, A Political Companion to Emerson reassesses Emerson’s famous theory of self-reliance in light of his antislavery politics, demonstrates the importance of transcendentalism to his politics, and explores the enduring significance of his thought for liberal democracy. Including a substantial bibliography of work on Emerson’s politics over the last century, A Political Companion to Ralph Waldo Emerson is an indispensable resource for students of Emerson, American literature, and American political thought, as well as for those who wrestle with the fundamental challenges of democracy and liberalism.

A Political Companion to John Steinbeck

Author : Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813142040
Total Pages : 386 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to John Steinbeck by : Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh

Download or read book A Political Companion to John Steinbeck written by Cyrus Ernesto Zirakzadeh and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2013-05-15 with total page 386 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Though he was a recipient of both the Pulitzer Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature, American novelist John Steinbeck (1902--1968) has frequently been censored. Even in the twenty-first century, nearly ninety years after his work first appeared in print, Steinbeck's novels, stories, and plays still generate controversy: his 1937 book Of Mice and Men was banned in some Mississippi schools in 2002, and as recently as 2009, he made the American Library Association's annual list of most frequently challenged authors. A Political Companion to John Steinbeck examines the most contentious political aspects of the author's body of work, from his early exploration of social justice and political authority during the Great Depression to his later positions regarding domestic and international threats to American policies. Featuring contemporaneous and present-day interpretations of his novels and essays by historians, literary scholars, and political theorists, this book covers the spectrum of Steinbeck's writing, exploring everything from his place in American political culture to his seeming betrayal of his leftist principles in later years.

Under Surveillance

Author : Randolph Lewis
Publisher : University of Texas Press
ISBN 13 : 1477312439
Total Pages : 276 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (773 download)

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Book Synopsis Under Surveillance by : Randolph Lewis

Download or read book Under Surveillance written by Randolph Lewis and published by University of Texas Press. This book was released on 2017-11-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Never before has so much been known about so many. CCTV cameras, TSA scanners, NSA databases, big data marketers, predator drones, "stop and frisk" tactics, Facebook algorithms, hidden spyware, and even old-fashioned nosy neighbors—surveillance has become so ubiquitous that we take its presence for granted. While many types of surveillance are pitched as ways to make us safer, almost no one has examined the unintended consequences of living under constant scrutiny and how it changes the way we think and feel about the world. In Under Surveillance, Randolph Lewis offers a highly original look at the emotional, ethical, and aesthetic challenges of living with surveillance in America since 9/11. Taking a broad and humanistic approach, Lewis explores the growth of surveillance in surprising places, such as childhood and nature. He traces the rise of businesses designed to provide surveillance and security, including those that cater to the Bible Belt's houses of worship. And he peers into the dark side of playful surveillance, such as eBay's online guide to "Fun with Surveillance Gadgets." A worried but ultimately genial guide to this landscape, Lewis helps us see the hidden costs of living in a "control society" in which surveillance is deemed essential to governance and business alike. Written accessibly for a general audience, Under Surveillance prompts us to think deeply about what Lewis calls "the soft tissue damage" inflicted by the culture of surveillance.

Henry David Thoreau

Author : Lawrence Buell
Publisher : Oxford University Press
ISBN 13 : 0197684262
Total Pages : 153 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (976 download)

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Book Synopsis Henry David Thoreau by : Lawrence Buell

Download or read book Henry David Thoreau written by Lawrence Buell and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2023-10-03 with total page 153 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond..." Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was a leading figure in the American Transcendentalist movement and the era of U. S. literary emergence, an intellectual with worldwide influence as essayist, social thinker, naturalist-environmentalist, and sage. Thoreau's Walden, an autobiographical narrative of his two-year sojourn in a self-built lakeside cabin, is one of the most widely studied works of American literature. It has generated scores of literary imitations and thousands of neo-Walden experiments in back-to-basics living, both rural and urban. Thoreau's great essay, "Civil Disobedience," is a classic of American political activism and a model for nonviolent reform movements around the world. Thoreau also stands as an icon of modern American environmentalism, the father of American nature writing, a forerunner of modern ecology, and a harbinger of freelance spirituality combining the wisdom of west and east. Thoreau is also a controversial figure. From his day to ours, he has provoked sharply opposite reactions ranging from reverence to dismissal. Scholars have regularly offered conflicting assessments of the significance of his work, the evolution of his thought, even the facts of his life. Some disagreements are in the eye of the beholder, but many follow from challenges posed by his own cross-grained idiosyncrasies. He was an advocate for individual self-sufficiency who never broke away from home, a self-professed mystic now also acclaimed as a pioneer natural and applied scientist, and a seminal theorist of nonviolent protest who defended the most notorious guerrilla fighter of his day. All told, he remains a rather enigmatic figure both despite and because we know so much about him, beginning with the two-million-word journal he kept throughout his adult life. The esteemed Thoreau scholar Lawrence Buell gives due consideration to all these aspects of Thoreau's art and thought, framing key issues and complexities in historical and literary context.

A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass

Author : Neil Roberts
Publisher : University Press of Kentucky
ISBN 13 : 0813175631
Total Pages : 426 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (131 download)

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Book Synopsis A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass by : Neil Roberts

Download or read book A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass written by Neil Roberts and published by University Press of Kentucky. This book was released on 2018-06-29 with total page 426 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A splendid opportunity to rethink Douglass’s political thought . . . relevant today given the discourse of white nationalism in the United States.” —Choice Frederick Douglass was a writer and public speaker whose impact on America has been long studied by historians and literary critics. Yet as political theorists have focused on the legacies of such notables as W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, Douglass’s profound influence on Afro-modern and American political thought has often been undervalued. In an effort to fill this gap in the scholarship on Douglass, editor Neil Roberts and an exciting group of established and rising scholars examine the author’s autobiographies, essays, speeches, and novella. Together, they illuminate his genius for analyzing and articulating core American ideals such as independence, liberation, individualism, and freedom, particularly in the context of slavery. The contributors explore Douglass’s understanding of the self-made American and the way in which he expanded the notion of individual potential by arguing that citizens had a responsibility to improve not only their own situations but also those of their communities. A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass also considers the idea of agency, investigating Douglass’s passionate insistence that every person in a democracy, even a slave, possesses an innate ability to act. Various essays illuminate Douglass’s complex racial politics, deconstructing what seems at first to be his surprising aversion to racial pride, and others explore and critique concepts of masculinity, gender, and judgment in his oeuvre. The volume concludes with a discussion of Douglass’s contributions to pre- and post-Civil War jurisprudence. “Rich insights from scholarship both old and new. A fine collection.” —Political Theory