Romanticism and Pragmatism

This interdisciplinary project is situated at the boundary between literary studies and philosophy. Its chief focus is on American Romanticism and it examines work by a number of prominent writers and philosophers, from Whitman and Thoreau to Barthes and Rorty.

This interdisciplinary project is situated at the boundary between literary studies and philosophy. Its chief focus is on American Romanticism and it examines work by a number of prominent writers and philosophers, from Whitman and Thoreau to Barthes and Rorty.

Introduction PART I: PRAGMATISM AND THE IDEA OF A LITERARY OR POETICIZED CULTURE 1. F.C.S. Schiller: Pragmatism, Humanism, and Postmetaphysics 2. Richard Rorty's Notion of a Poeticized Culture 3. Roland Barthes, Marcel Proust, and the 'désir d'écrire' PART II: FROM FINDING TO MAKING: PRAGMATISM AND ROMANTICISM 4. Books, Rocks, and Sentimental Education: Self-Culture and the Desire for the Really Real in Henry David Thoreau 5. 'Strangle the singers who will not sing you loud and strong': Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and the Idea of a Literary Culture 6. Poets, Partial Stories, and the Earth of Things: William James between Romanticism and Worldliness 7. John Dewey's Antifoundationalist Story of Progress 8. 'Toolmakers rather than discoverers': Richard Rorty's Reading of Romanticism PART III: ETHICS, THE NOVEL, AND THE PRIVATE-PUBLIC DISTINCTION 9. Resuscitating Ethical Criticism: Martha Nussbaum and the Moral Significance of the Novel 10. John Dewey and the Moral Imagination 11. 'Redemption from Egotism': Richard Rorty, the Private-Public Distinction, and the Novel 12. 'Soucie-toi de toi-même': Michel Foucault and Etho-Poetics PART IV: PRAGMATISM, RACE AND COSMOPOLITANISM 13. 'The myth-men are going': Richard Wright, Communism, and Cosmopolitan Humanism 14. 'Where the people can sing, the poet can live': James Baldwin, Pragmatism, and Cosmopolitan Humanism PART V: CONCLUSION Notes Bibliography