Reluctant Modernism: American Thought and Culture, 1880-1900Rowman & Littlefield, 2004 - 188 من الصفحات In the last two decades of the nineteenth century, Americans were faced with the challenges and uncertainties of a new era. The comfortable Victorian values of continuity, progress, and order clashed with the unsettling modern notions of constant change, relative truth, and chaos. Attempting to embrace the intellectual challenges of modernism, American thinkers of the day were yet reluctant to welcome the wholesale rejection of the past and destruction of traditional values. In Reluctant Modernism: American Thought and Culture, 1880-1900, George Cotkin surveys the intellectual life of this crucial transitional period. His story begins with the Darwinian controversies, since the mainstream of American culture was just beginning to come to grips with the implications of the Origins of Species, published in 1859. Cotkin demonstrates the effects of this shift in thinking on philosophy, anthropology, and the newly developing field of psychology. Drawing on his extensive knowledge of these fields, he explains clearly and concisely the essential tenets of such major thinkers and writers as William James, Franz Boas, Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Henry Adams, and Kate Chopin. Throughout this fascinating, readable history of the American fin de si cle run the contrasting themes of continuity and change, faith and rationalism, despair over the meaninglessness of life and, ultimately, a guarded optimism about the future. |
المحتوى
The Tangled Bank of Evolution and Religion | 1 |
The Experiences of American Philosophy | 27 |
Anthropology Progress and Racism | 51 |
Woman as Intellectual and Artist | 74 |
Consuming Culture | 101 |
lhe American Fin de Siecle | 130 |
Chronology | 155 |
157 | |
174 | |
Index | 181 |
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academic accepted American philosophers American Thought anthropology architecture artistic assumptions became Beecher Boas Charlotte Perkins Gilman Chicago civilization concept Coney Island cultural custodians Cushing Darwinian Darwinism department store desire Dewey doctrine domestic science economic Edgar Saltus elite environment evolution experience feminist fiction fin de siècle freedom function Gilman Gompers Hegelian Henry Adams Hodge human ideal ideas immigrants increasingly Indian individual institutions James's Joseph LeConte Käsebier laws LeConte liberal theology Library logic Louis Sullivan McCosh mind modern modernist moral natural selection nineteenth century novel organization Peirce pessimism philosophy political popular Powell pragmatism professional progress Psychology race racism reality religion Royce Saltus scientific scientists Smyth social society species spirit Stephen Crane Sullivan theologians theology thinkers Thomas Eakins Thorstein Veblen tion traditional truth University Press values Veblen Victorian William James woman women World's Columbian Exposition Wright York Zuni