Joan Emerson's Books

Pragmatism and American Experience

An Introduction

By: Joan Richardson

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Pragmatism and American Experience

An Introduction

By: Joan Richardson

Pragmatism and American Experience provides a lucid and elegant introduction to America's defining philosophy. Joan Richardson charts the nineteenth-century origins of pragmatist thought and its development through the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, focusing on the major first- and second-generation figures and how their contributions continue to influence philosophical discourse today. At the same time, Richardson casts pragmatism as the method it was designed to be: a way of making ideas clear, examining beliefs, and breaking old habits and reinforcing new and useful ones in the interest of maintaining healthy communities through ongoing conversation. Through this practice we come to perceive, as William James did, that thinking is as natural as breathing, and that the essential work of pragmatism is to open channels essential to all experience.

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293

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Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1139952099

ISBN 13

9781139952095

A Natural History of Pragmatism

The Fact of Feeling from Jonathan Edwards to Gertrude Stein

By: Joan Richardson

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A Natural History of Pragmatism

The Fact of Feeling from Jonathan Edwards to Gertrude Stein

By: Joan Richardson

Joan Richardson provides a fascinating and compelling account of the emergence of the quintessential American philosophy: pragmatism. She demonstrates pragmatism's engagement with various branches of the natural sciences and traces the development of Jamesian pragmatism from the late nineteenth century through modernism, following its pointings into the present. Richardson combines strands from America's religious experience with scientific information to offer interpretations that break new ground in literary and cultural history. This book exemplifies the value of interdisciplinary approaches to producing literary criticism. In a series of highly original readings of Edwards, Emerson, William and Henry James, Stevens, and Stein, A Natural History of Pragmatism tracks the interplay of religious motive, scientific speculation, and literature in shaping an American aesthetic. Wide-ranging and bold, this groundbreaking book will be essential reading for all students and scholars of American literature.

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Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1139461745

ISBN 13

9781139461740

Fool's Masquerade

By: Joan Wolf

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Fool's Masquerade

By: Joan Wolf

A LADY IN DISGUISE Valentine Ardsley disguised herself as a teenaged boy to take a job as a groom on the magnificent Yorkshire estate of the arrogantly self-assured, imperiously handsome, Lord Diccon Leyburn. But her daring escape from the narrow confines of young ladyhood did not last long. Valentine was unmasked by Lord Leyburn with shameful ease. Even worse, when Leyburn made her an offer of marriage, he made it insultingly clear that this was a matter of duty on his part, and certainly not desire. Never would Valentine accept such an odious offer. Instead she would go to London to find a gentleman who would really love her—even if this meant pretending she could love any man but the infuriatingly irresistible Lord Leyburn in return…

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116

Publisher

Untreed Reads

Published Date

ISBN 10

1949135594

ISBN 13

9781949135596

The Remarkable Mrs. Ripley

The Life of Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley

By: Joan W. Goodwin

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The Remarkable Mrs. Ripley

The Life of Sarah Alden Bradford Ripley

By: Joan W. Goodwin

A biography as distinctive as the celebrated woman scholar it depicts.

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436

Publisher

UPNE

Published Date

ISBN 10

155553368X

ISBN 13

9781555533687

Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

By: Joan Chittister

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Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

By: Joan Chittister

Building on the biblical story of Jacob wrestling with God and on the story of her own battle with life-changing disappointment, Sister Joan Chittister deftly explores the landscape of suffering and hope. (Practical Life)

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136

Publisher

Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing

Published Date

ISBN 10

0802829740

ISBN 13

9780802829740

The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art

By: Joan M. Marter

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The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art

By: Joan M. Marter

Arranged in alphabetical order, these 5 volumes encompass the history of the cultural development of America with over 2300 entries.

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3140

Publisher

Oxford University Press, USA

Published Date

ISBN 10

0195335791

ISBN 13

9780195335798

Ecocritical Theology

Neo-Pastoral Themes in American Fiction from 1960 to the Present

By: Joan Anderson Ashford

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Ecocritical Theology

Neo-Pastoral Themes in American Fiction from 1960 to the Present

By: Joan Anderson Ashford

The literary field of ecocriticism appraises texts from the perspective of the natural world, its biosystems, its animals (human and otherwise), and its ecological interconnections. Exploring a range of contemporary American novelists whose narratives resonate with numerous ecological challenges, this work examines humankind's relationship with the environment in the context of Judeo-Christian theological views. It demonstrates how characters from novels such as John Updike's Rabbit Run, DeLillo's White Noise, Toni Morrison's Paradise, and Cormac McCarthy's The Road take neopastoral journeys to rediscover an innovative relationship with nature and religion. While some are successful, others turn away from the landscape's spirituality, retreating into technological inventions. The journeys of these fictional American heroes, this volume shows, mirror ongoing, theological, nuclear age convictions.

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209

Publisher

McFarland

Published Date

ISBN 10

0786490721

ISBN 13

9780786490721

A Place to Belong

By: Joan Lowery Nixon

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A Place to Belong

By: Joan Lowery Nixon

Danny and his younger sister, Peg, are placed in St. Joseph, Missouri, with kind Alfrid and Olga Swenson. Danny is thrilled to have a "real" father again, but when Olga suddenly dies, he is devastated—until he thinks of an ingenious plan to find Alfrid a new wife.

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161

Publisher

Delacorte Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0307827577

ISBN 13

9780307827579

Constance Rourke and American Culture

By: Joan Shelley Rubin

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Constance Rourke and American Culture

By: Joan Shelley Rubin

The career of Constance Rourke (1885-1941) is one of the richest examples of the American writer's search for a "usable past." In this first full-length study of Rourke, Joan Shelley Rubin establishes the context for Rourke's defense of American culture -- the controversies that engaged her, the books that influenced her thinking, the premises that lay beneath her vocabulary. With the aid of Rourke's unpublished papers, the author explores her responses to issues that were compelling for her generation of intellectuals: the critique of America as materialistic and provincial; the demand for native traditions in the arts; the modern understanding of the nature of culture and myth; and the question of a critic's role in a democracy. Rourke's writings demonstrate that America did not suffer, as Van Wyck Brooks and others had maintained, from a damaging split between "high-brow" and "low-brow" but was rather a rich, unified culture in which the arts could thrive. Her classic American Humor (1931) and her biographies of Lotta Crabtree, Davy Crockett, Audubon, and Charles Sheeler celebrate the American as mythmaker. To foster what she called the "possession" of the national heritage, she used an evocative prose style accessible to a wide audience and depicted the frontier in more abstract terms than did other contempoaray scholars. Her commitment to social reform, acquired in her youth and strengthened at Vassar in the Progressive era, informed her sense of the function of criticism and guided her political activites in the 1930s. Drawing together Rourke's varied discussions of popular heroes, comic lore, literature, and art, Rubin illuminates the delicate balances and sometimes contradictory arguments underlying Rourke's description of America's cultural patterns. She also analyzes the way Rourke's encounters with the ideas of Van Wyck Brooks, Ruth Benedict, Jane Harrison, Bernard DeVoto, and Lewis Mumford shaped her view of America's achievements and possibilities. Rourke emerges not simply as a follower of Brooks or as a colleague of De Voto, nor even as an antiquarian or folklorist. Rather, she assumes her own unique and proper place -- as a pioneer who, more than anyone else of her day, boldly and eloquently showed Americans that they had the resources necessary for the future of both art and society. By placing Constance Rourke within the framework of a debate about the nature of American culture, the author makes a notable contribution to American intellectual history. Originally published in 1980. A UNC Press Enduring Edition -- UNC Press Enduring Editions use the latest in digital technology to make available again books from our distinguished backlist that were previously out of print. These editions are published unaltered from the original, and are presented in affordable paperback formats, bringing readers both historical and cultural value.

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266

Publisher

UNC Press Books

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807814024

ISBN 13

9780807814024

The Painted Queen

A Novel

By: Elizabeth Peters,Joan Hess

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The Painted Queen

A Novel

By: Elizabeth Peters,Joan Hess

Egypt, 1912—Amelia Peabody and her dashing archeologist husband, Radcliffe Emerson, are once again in danger as they search for a priceless, stolen bust of legendary Queen Nefertiti and Amelia finds herself the target of assassins in this long-awaited, eagerly anticipated final installment of Elizabeth Peters’ bestselling, beloved mystery series. Arriving in Cairo for another thrilling excavation season, Amelia is relaxing in a well-earned bubble bath in her elegant hotel suite in Cairo, when a man with knife protruding from his back staggers into the bath chamber and utters a single word—"Murder"—before collapsing on the tiled floor, dead. Among the few possessions he carried was a sheet of paper with Amelia’s name and room number, and a curious piece of pasteboard the size of a calling card bearing one word: "Judas." Most peculiarly, the stranger was wearing a gold-rimmed monocle in his left eye. It quickly becomes apparent that someone saved Amelia from a would-be assassin—someone who is keeping a careful eye on the intrepid Englishwoman. Discovering a terse note clearly meant for Emerson—Where were you?"—pushed under their door, there can be only one answer: the brilliant master of disguise, Sethos. But neither assassins nor the Genius of Crime will deter Amelia as she and Emerson head to the excavation site at Amarna, where they will witness the discovery of one of the most precious Egyptian artifacts: the iconic Nefertiti bust. In 1345 B.C. the sculptor Thutmose crafted the piece in tribute to the great beauty of this queen who was also the chief consort of Pharaoh Akhenaten and stepmother to King Tutankhamun. For Amelia, this excavation season will prove to be unforgettable. Throughout her journey, a parade of men in monocles will die under suspicious circumstances, fascinating new relics will be unearthed, a diabolical mystery will be solved, and a brilliant criminal will offer his final challenge . . . and perhaps be unmasked at last.

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335

Publisher

HarperCollins

Published Date

ISBN 10

006208352X

ISBN 13

9780062083524

Healing the Republic

The Language of Health and the Culture of Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century America

By: Joan Burbick

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Healing the Republic

The Language of Health and the Culture of Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century America

By: Joan Burbick

In this study Joan Burbick interprets nineteenth-century narratives of health written by physicians, social reformers, lay healers, and literary artists in order to expose the conflicts underlying the creation of a national culture in America. These "fictions" of health include annual reports of mental asylums, home physician manuals, social reform books, and novels consumed by the middle class that functioned as cautionary tales of well-being. Read together these writings engage in a counterpoint of voices at once constructing and debating the hegemonic values of the emerging American nation. That political values flow from the daily exigencies of survival and enjoyment is one of the claims advanced by theorists of cultural hegemony. Broadening this assumption, the narratives of health presented here address the demands and desires of everyday life and construct a national discourse with directives on control, authority, and subordination. They articulate the wish for a healthy citizenry, freed of pain and saturated with well-being, and they insist upon specific ideologies and knowledges of the body in order to achieve this radiance of health. Divided into two parts, the work first examines the structures of authority found in health narratives and then studies the topology of the body found in a cross section of writings. The first part examines how the authority of "common sense" is pitted against that of physiological law and its transcendent "constitution" for the body. The second analyzes how specific knowledges about the brain, heart, nerves, and eye provide individual "keys" to health, indices that reveal the conflicts inherent in American nationalism. In studying thesenarratives of health, Healing the Republic confronts what Burbick sees as a certain fundamental uneasiness about democracy in America. Fearing the political freedom they hoped to embrace. Americans designed ways to control the body in the effort to create, impose, or encompass social order in a corporeal politics whose influences are felt to this day.

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368

Publisher

Cambridge University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0521454344

ISBN 13

9780521454346

Songs of Ourselves

The Uses of Poetry in America

By: Joan Shelley Rubin

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Songs of Ourselves

The Uses of Poetry in America

By: Joan Shelley Rubin

Listen to a short interview with Joan Shelley RubinHost: Chris Gondek | Producer: Heron & Crane In the years between 1880 and 1950, Americans recited poetry at family gatherings, school assemblies, church services, camp outings, and civic affairs. As they did so, they invested poems--and the figure of the poet--with the beliefs, values, and emotions that they experienced in those settings. Reciting a poem together with others joined the individual to the community in a special and memorable way. In a strikingly original and rich portrait of the uses of verse in America, Joan Shelley Rubin shows how the sites and practices of reciting poetry influenced readers' lives and helped them to find meaning in a poet's words. Emphasizing the cultural circumstances that influenced the production and reception of poets and poetry in this country, Rubin recovers the experiences of ordinary people reading poems in public places. We see the recent immigrant seeking acceptance, the schoolchild eager to be integrated into the class, the mourner sharing grief at a funeral, the grandparent trying to bridge the generation gap--all instances of readers remaking texts to meet social and personal needs. Preserving the moral, romantic, and sentimental legacies of the nineteenth century, the act of reading poems offered cultural continuity, spiritual comfort, and pleasure. Songs of Ourselves is a unique history of literary texts as lived experience. By blurring the boundaries between "high" and "popular" poetry as well as between modern and traditional, it creates a fuller, more democratic way of studying our poetic language and ourselves.

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Page Count

487

Publisher

Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674035127

ISBN 13

9780674035126

The Making of Middlebrow Culture

By: Joan Shelley Rubin

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The Making of Middlebrow Culture

By: Joan Shelley Rubin

The proliferation of book clubs, reading groups, "outline" volumes, and new forms of book reviewing in the first half of the twentieth century influenced the tastes and pastimes of millions of Americans. Joan Rubin here provides the first comprehensive analysis of this phenomenon, the rise of American middlebrow culture, and the values encompassed by it. Rubin centers her discussion on five important expressions of the middlebrow: the founding of the Book-of-the-Month Club; the beginnings of "great books" programs; the creation of the New York Herald Tribune's book-review section; the popularity of such works as Will Durant's The Story of Philosophy; and the emergence of literary radio programs. She also investigates the lives and expectations of the individuals who shaped these middlebrow institutions--such figures as Stuart Pratt Sherman, Irita Van Doren, Henry Seidel Canby, Dorothy Canfield Fisher, John Erskine, William Lyon Phelps, Alexander Woollcott, and Clifton Fadiman. Moreover, as she pursues the significance of these cultural intermediaries who connected elites and the masses by interpreting ideas to the public, Rubin forces a reconsideration of the boundary between high culture and popular sensibility.

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439

Publisher

Univ of North Carolina Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0807864269

ISBN 13

9780807864265

Gun Show Nation

Gun Culture and American Democracy

By: Joan Burbick

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Gun Show Nation

Gun Culture and American Democracy

By: Joan Burbick

Cultural historian, critic and gun owner Joan Burbick examines the lethal politics of gun ownership, answering that perennial question about American culture: why are Americans so obsessed with guns? Looking at the nation from the floor of a gun show, Burbick uncovers a powerful conservative ideology that attempts to place gun ownership at the centre of US democracy. Her analysis takes us from the history of the NRA, through the gun lobby's engagement with US politics, to the movement's contemporary hostility to the United Nations.

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258

Published Date

ISBN 10

1595582045

ISBN 13

9781595582041

Unsentimental Reformer

The Life of Josephine Shaw Lowell

By: Joan Waugh

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Unsentimental Reformer

The Life of Josephine Shaw Lowell

By: Joan Waugh

A Brahmin, member of an illustrious family, sister of the martyred Robert Gould Shaw, who led his proud black troops against Fort Wagner, and, later, a war widow, Lowell constantly responded to changing ideological and economic conditions affecting the poor.

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332

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Harvard University Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0674930363

ISBN 13

9780674930360

Book's by Joan Emerson

Pragmatism and American Experience

Pragmatism and American Experience

A Natural History of Pragmatism

A Natural History of Pragmatism

Fool's Masquerade

Fool's Masquerade

The Remarkable Mrs. Ripley

The Remarkable Mrs. Ripley

Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

Scarred by Struggle, Transformed by Hope

The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art

The Grove Encyclopedia of American Art

Ecocritical Theology

Ecocritical Theology

A Place to Belong

A Place to Belong

Constance Rourke and American Culture

Constance Rourke and American Culture

The Painted Queen

The Painted Queen

Healing the Republic

Healing the Republic

Songs of Ourselves

Songs of Ourselves

The Making of Middlebrow Culture

The Making of Middlebrow Culture

Gun Show Nation

Gun Show Nation

Unsentimental Reformer

Unsentimental Reformer

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