Emerson’s Self-reliance as a Core Value of American Society
| Thesis title in Czech: | Emersonova Soběstačnost Jako Podstatná Hodnota Americké Společnosti. |
|---|---|
| Thesis title in English: | Emerson’s Self-reliance as a Core Value of American Society |
| Key words: | Ralph Waldo Emerson|americká společnost|soběstačnost|individualismus|svoboda|americká kultura|hodnoty |
| English key words: | Ralph Waldo Emerson|American society|self-reliance|individualism|freedom|American culture|values |
| Academic year of topic announcement: | 2018/2019 |
| Thesis type: | Bachelor's thesis |
| Thesis language: | angličtina |
| Department: | Department of Anglophone Literatures and Cultures (21-UALK) |
| Supervisor: | David Lee Robbins, Ph.D. |
| Author: | hidden - assigned and confirmed by the Study Dept. |
| Date of registration: | 19.12.2018 |
| Date of assignment: | 19.12.2018 |
| Administrator's approval: | not processed yet |
| Confirmed by Study dept. on: | 17.01.2019 |
| Date and time of defence: | 05.09.2019 08:30 |
| Date of electronic submission: | 14.08.2019 |
| Date of proceeded defence: | 05.09.2019 |
| Submitted/finalized: | committed by student and finalized |
| Opponents: | doc. Erik Sherman Roraback, D.Phil. |
| Guidelines |
| This BA thesis will research the role of self-reliance established by an American essayist, writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson as one of the core values of American society. Focus will be mainly on the beginning of the American society and the birth of this ideology and on its present-day significance in modern-day America. The material will be drawn from Emerson’s essay on self-reliance, his other essays, his sermons, and his journals, supported by Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America and from books on U.S. society and mentality. Respective analysis of the role of the concept of Self-reliance will be compiled from two parts. First, the concept of self-reliance will be defined from Emerson’s essay on self-reliance with the support of Tocqueville’s Democracy in America to help describe the role of this concept in U.S. society at the time of the essay’s appearance. The second part of the text will be focused on the modern-day significance of this concept in present-day America, which will be derived from books on American society and mentality, recent researches on American values and culture, and surveys of the American national culture. It is expected that the text will show new findings about American society and its values. The anticipated conclusion presumes that the concept of self-reliance introduced by Emerson is one of the deeply rooted values of American society and culture. The work will be written in English. |
| References |
| Bibliography Berland, Penn Schoen. “The Atlantic/Aspen Institute Survey 2015: Majority of Americans Express Optimism About Own Lives, Yet Believe American Dream Is Suffering” The Atlantic.com, 2015. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, The Complete Sermons of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Albert J. von Frank, chief editor, 4 volumes. Columbia, University of Missouri Press, 1989-1992. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. Essays. Pennsylvania: Pennsylvania State University Electronic Classics Series, 2001. Emerson, Ralph Waldo, Journals and Miscellaneous Notebooks of Ralph Waldo Emerson, William H. Gilman and Ralph H. Orth, chief editors, 16 volumes. Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960-1982. Fischer, Claude S. Made in America: A Social History of American Culture and Character. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2011. Fuller, Randall, Emerson’s Ghosts: Literature, Politics, and the Making of Americanists. New York: Oxford University Press, 2007. Jones, Robert P. Daniel Cox, Betsy Cooper, and Rachel Lienesch. “THE DIVIDE OVER AMERICA’S FUTURE: 1950 OR 2050?” Washington D.C.: Public Religion Research Institute, 2016. Jones, Robert P., Daniel Cox, Molly Fisch-Friedman and Alex Vandermaas-Peeler. “One Nation, Divided, Under Trump. Findings from the American Values Survey” PRRI. 2017. Kateb, George, Emerson and Self-Reliance, New Edition. 1994; New York: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002. Kateb, George, The Inner Ocean: Individualism and Democratic Culture. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1992. Newfield, Christopher, The Emerson Effect: Individualism and Submission in America. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996. Quinn, Justin (ed.) et al., Lectures on American Literature, Third Edition. Univerzita Karlova v Praze: Nakladatelstvi Karolinum, 2011. Robbins, David Lee, “Emerson the Nihilist” in Litteraria Pragensia, Volume 24, Issue 48, December 2014. Tocqueville, Alexis. Democracy in America. Translated by Henry Reeve. Pennsylvania State University: Electronic Classics Series, 2002. |