Emerson's Affinities

Father of the American Mind
1. Auflage 2025
ISBN: 978-1-032-99401-7
Verlag: Taylor & Francis Ltd

Buch, Englisch, 380 Seiten, Format (B × H): 152 mm x 229 mm, Gewicht: 453 g

Reihe: Routledge Studies in American Philosophy

This volume presents Ralph Waldo Emerson’s engagement with diverse philosophical traditions with the concurrent aim of showing the contemporary relevance of his Transcendentalism.

As scholarship increasingly centres on Emerson’s place within American philosophy, this collection offers fresh insights into the expansive reach of his thought across Western and Eastern traditions, spanning the nineteenth century to the present. Featuring comparative analyses and innovative applications of Transcendentalism, it connects Emerson’s ideas to global philosophies, religions, and cultures. Thematically organised into three parts, the volume first situates Emerson within Romanticism and Platonism. Part Two examines his metaphysics and his intersections with both Eastern and Western religious thought. Finally, Part Three applies his philosophy to education, aesthetics, environmental ethics, and politics. The cosmopolitan essays in this collection situate Emerson not only within Western thought but also in dialogue with Greek, Buddhist, Islamic and Vedantic philosophies. Geared primarily toward scholars and advanced students, though accessible to well-informed casual readers, the contributions are meticulously researched and calibrated for specialists in American philosophy, literature, religious studies and Emerson’s oeuvre.

Emerson’s Affinities is essential reading for scholars and graduate students in American Transcendentalism, literature, philosophy, and religious studies.

Zielgruppe

Postgraduate and Undergraduate Advanced

Autoren/Hrsg.

Alexandrov, Emile

Stakland, Steve

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Englische Literatur Amerikanische Literatur
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Geschichte der Westlichen Philosophie Westliche Philosophie: Transzendentalphilosophie, Kritizismus

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Introduction  Part 1: Emerson, Platonism and Romanticism  1. Emerson on Plato and Shakespeare: Intelligence and Weak Ties 2. Emerson and German Idealism 3. Emerson’s Anti-Scientistic Naturalism 4. Genial-Heat Imagination: John James Audubon’s Proto-Transcendentalist Sentimentalism 5. A Comparative Hermeneutic: Coleridge, Emerson, and Peirce on the Inexhaustibly Re-Ebullient Potency of the Creative Imagination 6. Emerson: “Nature’s God Neoplatonized” 7. Emerson’s Transparent Eyeball, a Genealogy: Coleridge, Emerson, Muir  Part 2: Emerson, Religion and Metaphysics  8. Emerson, Progenitor of Independent American Spiritual Teachers 9. Nature in the Neoplatonism of Emerson and Al-Kindi  10. The Over-Soul of Nature: Emerson’s Transcendental Philosophy and Vedanta 11. Between the Over-Soul and Buddhahood: Emerson’s Engagement with Nineteenth-Century Buddhist Discourse
12. Emerson’s “Pure Plastic Idea” and the Indefinite Dyad of the Platonic Heritage  Part 3: Emerson, Art, Ethics, and Education  13. Let’s Play with Symbols: Emersonian Filmmaking Within Hybrid Cinema 14. To Thrill and Agitate: Complex Figuration in Emerson and Lovecraft 15. Subject as Sepulchre: Identity and the Emptying of Tradition in Emerson’s 21st Century 16. Fichte, Emerson, Stiegler, and the Rediscovery of the Immanent, Self-Culture in the Era of Dissipation 17. The Floundering of American Education: Emerson’s Influence on John Dewey 18. Can Philosophy Save America? 19. An Emersonian Approach to the Climate Crisis 20. Hermeneutic Circle: Emerson, Peirce, Heidegger

Über Autor(innen)

Emile Alexandrov is Assistant Professor of Philosophy at the University of Tyumen. He works in American Transcendentalism, Graeco-Arabic, and Buddhist metaphysics. He authored The Other Platonist Beginning: Heidegger and Neoplatonism (2024), edited Buddhism and Neoplatonism I (2025) and is a co-director of the biennial International Symposium on Buddhism & Neoplatonism.

Steve Stakland is Professor of Philosophy and Department Chair at Northern Virginia Community College. He specialises in the phenomenology of education. He authored Exploring What Is Lost in the Online Undergraduate Experience (2023) and edited The Phenomenology of Play (2024).