Dr. Rebhorn 3 credits

          Transcendentalism was one of the most important cultural movements ever to spring from the United States. It inspired an enormous number of reform movements like community living, women’s rights, and abolitionism, and can be directly linked to such aspects of our lifestyle as vegetarianism, physical exercise, and that ubiquitous bottle of water in people’s hands. However, while Transcendentalism has—and continues to have—a huge impact on American life, what exactly it is, and of what it entails, has been notoriously difficult to define. Ralph Waldo Emerson defined it obscurely as “Idealism as it appears in 1842,” while Charles Leland described it as “dreamy,” “mystical,” and “crazy.” This class thus aims to define it by exploring a range of texts written by nineteenth-century Transcendentalists that take as their subject such diverse subjects as nature, slavery, womens’ rights, community, and history. By exploring major works by Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller, Alcott, and Hawthorne, among others, this course reveals Transcendentalism’s intellectual and literary terrain so that students can discover how this term resonated in the nineteenth century and what it means to them today.

          This course fulfills the periodrequirement for the major. It is also by permission only, meaning that if you are interested in this class, you must contact Professor Rebhorn for a permission number.

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