William Faulkner, William James, and the American Pragmatic Tradition

William Faulkner, William James, and the American Pragmatic Tradition PDF Author: David H. Evans
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807149284
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 363

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Book Description
In William Faulkner, William James, and the American Pragmatic Tradition, David H. Evans pairs the writings of America's most intellectually challenging modern novelist, William Faulkner, and the ideas of America's most revolutionary modern philosopher, William James. Though Faulkner was dubbed an idealist after World War II, Evans demonstrates that Faulkner's writing is deeply connected to the emergence of pragmatism as an intellectual doctrine and cultural force in the early twentieth century. Tracing pragmatism to its very roots, Evans examines the nineteenth-century confidence man of antebellum literature as the original practitioner of the pragmatic principle that a belief can give rise to its own objects. He casts this figure as the missing link between Faulkner and James, giving him new prominence in the prehistory of pragmatism. Moving on to Jamesian pragmatism, Evans contends that James's central innovation was his ability to define truth in narrative terms -- just as the confidence man did -- as something subjective and personal that continually shapes reality, rather than a set of static, unchanging facts. In subsequent chapters Evans offers detailed interpretations of three of Faulkner's most important novels, Absalom, Absalom!, Go Down, Moses, and The Hamlet, revealing that Faulkner, too, saw truth as fluid. By avoiding conclusion and finality, these three novels embody the pragmatic belief that life and the world are unstable and constantly evolving. Absalom, Absalom! stages a conflict of historical discourses that -- much like the pragmatic concept of truth -- can never be ultimately resolved. Evans shows us how Faulkner explores the conventional and arbitrary status of racial identity in Go Down, Moses, in a way that is strikingly similar to James's criticism of the concept of identity in general. Finally, Evans reads The Hamlet, a work that is often used to support the idea that Faulkner is opposed to modernity, as a depiction of a distinctly pragmatic and modern world. With its creative coupling of James's philosophy and Faulkner's art, Evans's lively, engaging book makes a bold contribution to Faulkner studies and studies of southern literature.

William Faulkner, William James, and the American Pragmatic Tradition

William Faulkner, William James, and the American Pragmatic Tradition PDF Author: David H. Evans
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807149284
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 363

Get Book Here

Book Description
In William Faulkner, William James, and the American Pragmatic Tradition, David H. Evans pairs the writings of America's most intellectually challenging modern novelist, William Faulkner, and the ideas of America's most revolutionary modern philosopher, William James. Though Faulkner was dubbed an idealist after World War II, Evans demonstrates that Faulkner's writing is deeply connected to the emergence of pragmatism as an intellectual doctrine and cultural force in the early twentieth century. Tracing pragmatism to its very roots, Evans examines the nineteenth-century confidence man of antebellum literature as the original practitioner of the pragmatic principle that a belief can give rise to its own objects. He casts this figure as the missing link between Faulkner and James, giving him new prominence in the prehistory of pragmatism. Moving on to Jamesian pragmatism, Evans contends that James's central innovation was his ability to define truth in narrative terms -- just as the confidence man did -- as something subjective and personal that continually shapes reality, rather than a set of static, unchanging facts. In subsequent chapters Evans offers detailed interpretations of three of Faulkner's most important novels, Absalom, Absalom!, Go Down, Moses, and The Hamlet, revealing that Faulkner, too, saw truth as fluid. By avoiding conclusion and finality, these three novels embody the pragmatic belief that life and the world are unstable and constantly evolving. Absalom, Absalom! stages a conflict of historical discourses that -- much like the pragmatic concept of truth -- can never be ultimately resolved. Evans shows us how Faulkner explores the conventional and arbitrary status of racial identity in Go Down, Moses, in a way that is strikingly similar to James's criticism of the concept of identity in general. Finally, Evans reads The Hamlet, a work that is often used to support the idea that Faulkner is opposed to modernity, as a depiction of a distinctly pragmatic and modern world. With its creative coupling of James's philosophy and Faulkner's art, Evans's lively, engaging book makes a bold contribution to Faulkner studies and studies of southern literature.

Communities of Confidence

Communities of Confidence PDF Author: David Howell Evans
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 1070

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Book Description


William Faulkner, William James, and the American Pragmatic Tradition

William Faulkner, William James, and the American Pragmatic Tradition PDF Author: David H. Evans
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807134236
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 302

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Book Description
In William Faulkner, William James, and the American Pragmatic Tradition, David H. Evans pairs the writings of America's most intellectually challenging modern novelist, William Faulkner, and the ideas of America's most revolutionary modern philosopher, William James. Though Faulkner was dubbed an idealist after World War II, Evans demonstrates that Faulkner's writing is deeply connected to the emergence of pragmatism as an intellectual doctrine and cultural force in the early twentieth century. Tracing pragmatism to its very roots, Evans examines the nineteenth-century confidence man of antebellum literature as the original practitioner of the pragmatic principle that a belief can give rise to its own objects. He casts this figure as the missing link between Faulkner and James, giving him new prominence in the prehistory of pragmatism. Moving on to Jamesian pragmatism, Evans contends that James's central innovation was his ability to define truth in narrative terms -- just as the confidence man did -- as something subjective and personal that continually shapes reality, rather than a set of static, unchanging facts. In subsequent chapters Evans offers detailed interpretations of three of Faulkner's most important novels, Absalom, Absalom!, Go Down, Moses, and The Hamlet, revealing that Faulkner, too, saw truth as fluid. By avoiding conclusion and finality, these three novels embody the pragmatic belief that life and the world are unstable and constantly evolving. Absalom, Absalom! stages a conflict of historical discourses that -- much like the pragmatic concept of truth -- can never be ultimately resolved. Evans shows us how Faulkner explores the conventional and arbitrary status of racial identity in Go Down, Moses, in a way that is strikingly similar to James's criticism of the concept of identity in general. Finally, Evans reads The Hamlet, a work that is often used to support the idea that Faulkner is opposed to modernity, as a depiction of a distinctly pragmatic and modern world. With its creative coupling of James's philosophy and Faulkner's art, Evans's lively, engaging book makes a bold contribution to Faulkner studies and studies of southern literature.

Understanding James, Understanding Modernism

Understanding James, Understanding Modernism PDF Author: David H. Evans
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 1501302760
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 329

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Book Description
Psychologist, philosopher, teacher, writer-William James stood closer than any other thinker to the center of the confluence of intellectual and artistic forces that defined the culture of modernism. The outstanding feature of this volume lies in its intent to investigate James's influence on both American and International Modernism. It provides, on the one hand, a multifaceted introduction to students of history, philosophy, and culture, and on the other, a compendium of some of the most up-to-date thinking on this central figure. James's first book, Principles of Psychology (1890) immediately established James as the leading psychologist of his time, at a moment in history when psychology seemed to offer the promise of finding some definitive answers to eternal philosophical conundra. James's innovations would register a clear effect on much modernist art, most evidently in the stylistic prose experiments of James Joyce, Virginia Woolf, and their imitators. James's tentative skepticism concerning the concept of consciousness as such, and the post-Cartesian ego that was its foundation, also anticipates the questioning of the subject that would be the theme of much modern, and indeed postmodern thought. The contributors to this volume explore James's most essential texts as well as his influence on contemporary writers, artists, and thinkers. The final section is a glossary of James's key terms, with entries written by leading experts.

Ontology after Philosophical Psychology

Ontology after Philosophical Psychology PDF Author: Michela Bella
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1498560636
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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Book Description
Ontology after Philosophical Psychology addresses the question of William James’s continuity of consciousness, with a view to its possible actualizations. In particular, Michela Bella critically delineates James's discourse. In the wake of Darwin's theory of evolution at the end of the nineteenth century, James's reflections emerged in the field of physiological psychology, where he developed for the case for a renewed epistemology and a new metaphysical framework to help us understand the most interesting theories and scientific discoveries about the human mind. Bella’s analysis of the theme of continuity makes it possible to appreciate, both historically and theoretically, the importance of James's gradual transition from making observations of experimental psychology on the continuity of thought to developing an epistemological and ontological argument that continuity is a characteristic of experience and reality. This analysis makes it possible both to clarify James's position in relation to his historical context and to highlight the most original results of his work.

William Faulkner in the Media Ecology

William Faulkner in the Media Ecology PDF Author: Julian Murphet
Publisher: LSU Press
ISBN: 0807159492
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
William Faulkner in the Media Ecology explores the Nobel Prize-winning author immersed in the new media of his time. Intersecting with twentieth-century technology such as photography, film, and sound recording, these twelve essays portray Faulkner as not only as a writer looking back on the history of the U.S. South, but also as a screenwriter, aviator, and celebrity. This fresh, interdisciplinary approach to Faulkner presents an innovative way of reassessing a body of literary work that has engaged readers and critics for over sixty years. Essays by John T. Matthews, Catherine Gunther Kodat, Stefan Solomon, and Donald M. Kartiganer assess how Faulkner's legacy has been shaped through media adaptation and public commemoration of his work. Jay Watson, Michael Zeitlin, Sarah Gleeson-White, Robert Jackson, and Sascha Morrell consider a range of media relevant to the creation of the writer's stories and ways to recalibrate traditional thinking about his writing. Mark Steven, Peter Lurie, and Richard Godden examine how the vastly different mediations of both cinema and money influenced Faulkner's work. Editors Julian Murphet and Stefan Solomon have brought together some of the most prominent voices in Faulkner studies, along with a number of emerging scholars, to construct a portrait of Faulkner as a thoroughly modern writer, as much attuned to the evolution of the contemporary world as he was to the past.

Darwin and Faulkner’s Novels

Darwin and Faulkner’s Novels PDF Author: M. Wainwright
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230612059
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 253

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Book Description
Displaying a wide range of knowledge and interpretive skill, Darwin and Faulkner's Novels reexamines the fiction of the great twentieth century American author from the interdisciplinary perspective of sociobiology. Challenging the assumption that Faulkner's South was nothing other than a reactionary wilderness and charting the manner in which Faulkner learned and applied his evolutionary concepts, this book unsettles staid interpretations of the Falknerian canon and overturns habitual judgments as to the value of his later novels.

American Short Story Cycle

American Short Story Cycle PDF Author: Jennifer J. Smith
Publisher: Edinburgh University Press
ISBN: 1474423949
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 194

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Book Description
The American Short Story Cycle shows the roots of modernism and postmodernism winds through the short story cycle. Reviewers ranging from the The New York Times to Amazon do not know what to call books like Jennifer Egan?s A Visit from the Goon Squad or Jhumpa Lahiri?s Unaccustomed Earth. Why do such popular and acclaimed books spark debates about what they are and how they should be read? The American Short Story Cycle provides a history of this genre that has been hiding in plain sight. Dating back to the early nineteenth century and proliferating to the present, the short story cycle has been wildly popular both in the US and around the world. Stories in a cycle, which can be read singly but mean more together, reflect the individualism and pluralism that shape modern experience. This book gives a name and theory to the genre that has fostered the aesthetics of fragmentation and recurrence that characterize fiction today.

American Obscurantism

American Obscurantism PDF Author: Peter Lurie
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199797315
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
American Obscurantism argues for a salutary indirection in US culture. Critiquing the impulse to see history in seminal works like Griffith's Birth of a Nation and the residual positivism of New Historicist methodology, the book challenges this shared visual epistemology . It traces meaningful exceptions to this pattern across canonical figures from US literature and film.

Faulkner’s Ethics

Faulkner’s Ethics PDF Author: Michael Wainwright
Publisher: Springer Nature
ISBN: 3030688720
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 319

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Book Description
This book offers the first comprehensive investigation of ethics in the canon of William Faulkner. As the fundamental framework for its analysis of Faulkner’s fiction, this study draws on The Methods of Ethics, the magnum opus of the utilitarian philosopher Henry Sidgwick. While Faulkner’s Ethics does not claim that Faulkner read Sidgwick’s work, this book traces Faulkner’s moral sensitivity. It argues that Faulkner’s language is a moral medium that captures the ways in which people negotiate the ethical demands that life places on them. Tracing the contours of this evolving medium across six of the author’s major novels, it explores the basic precepts set out in The Methods of Ethics with the application of more recent contributions to moral philosophy, especially those of Jacques Derrida and Derek Parfit.