A summer seminar, ‘Reading Emerson’s Essays,’ directed by Philosophy Chair Russell Goodman and geared toward college and university professors, is underway at the University of New Mexico. The seminar, sponsored by the National Endowment for the Humanities with a grant of more than $100,000, is a collaborative effort among the selected 15 participants, who were drawn from departments of philosophy, literature, American studies, and politics from across the country.
If “each age must write its own books,” as Emerson said in “The American Scholar,” this age has certainly produced its own extraordinary books and essays about Emerson. Well-known writers such as Stanley Cavell and Barbara Packer have given their perspective on a new Emerson during the seminar, which has been ongoing since early June.
Goodman, a nationally prominent writer on Emerson, has published papers on such Emerson essays as “The Over-Soul” and “Nature,” and devotes a chapter to Emerson in his book American Philosophy and the Romantic Tradition, which was published by Cambridge University Press.
”Ralph Waldo Emerson is a major figure in American culture,” said Goodman. “His work on “self-reliance” is revered by many general readers, but in recent years it has been gathering increasing attention from philosophers, literary scholars, and political theorists.
“We have been extremely fortunate to have such visitors as (Stanley) Cavell from Harvard, who revolutionized the study of Emerson; Barbara Packer, of UCLA, who has studied Emerson and other transcendentalists in American literature, and Sharon Cameron, who works on the American writers Emerson and Thoreau, Herman Melville, and Emily Dickinson.”
The seminar has been meeting four days a week in the mornings, with afternoon sessions devoted to current work of the participants. The emphasis throughout has been on discussion and exchange, and on opening up multiple ways of thinking about the material. The seminar concludes on Saturday, July 2.
For more information contact Michelle Sauceda-Halliday, (505) 385-6579.
Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821
Posted by scarr at June 27, 2005 10:27 AM