Romanticism and Pragmatism, 2015 Richard Rorty and the Idea of a Poeticized Culture

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