Ralph Waldo Emerson: Philosophy and Solitude
Transcendence, Emerson wrote, is to move beyond the physical world of our senses into spiritual experience through free will and intuition. He believed that God could be known if we could only find a way to look into our soul and find a connection to nature. A father of American transcendentalism, Emerson turned readers away from looking at the world through concepts like time and space and instead turned toward the imagination. An influence on Friedrich Nietzsche, Emerson argued that we find ourselves in solitude, alone. Free from the influences of society and relations that shape our personalities. Can self-reliance grant us freedom? Is it possible to discover one’s true self? Can we learn to follow our own inner-voice, instead of the voice of another? What does it mean to “trust thyself”? What is the difference between self-reliance and individualism? What is the relationship between experience and authority? Between experience and self-authority?
In this course we will read the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson, including his major essays on “Experience,” “Circles,” “Self-Reliance,” “Nature,” “The Divinity School Address,” “Education,” “The Over-Soul,” and “The Poet.” Readings will be paired with entries from Emerson’s journals, correspondence with Henry David Thoreau. Secondary readings might include Nietzsche, Thoreau, William James, Harold Bloom, and Stanley Cavell, among others. Throughout we will imagine what an ideal form of education might look like in our world today. We will ask how technology has altered our notions of individualism and community. Is it possible to find oneself in nature today? How did Romanticism influence Emerson’s vision of the self? And is it possible to think poetically in our world of digital reality?
Course Schedule
Thursday, 6:30-9:30pm ETSeptember 12 — October 03, 2024
4 weeks
$335.00
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