**This class will be taught on Zoom**
The philosophical movement of the early 19th century, called Transcendentalism, challenged early 19th century attitudes about nature and religion at a time when America’s newly inspired intellectual class wanted to create a separate American identity from our European inheritance. Nonetheless, these New Englanders were influenced by German, French, English and Scottish writers of the Enlightenment and early Romantic movements, as well as by fascinating new trends in Bible scholarship and translations from Eastern Philosophical literature. The ideas of the Transcendentalists sparked controversy but had a lasting impact, fueling reform movements from abolition of slavery to public education and women’s role in society.
Class 1:
-Tenets of Transcendentalism
-Industrializing Ante-Bellum New England
Class 2:
-The Transcendental Club
-Philosophical Roots / Openness to New Thought, Rejection of the Old
-Ralph Waldo Emerson’s Nature, The American Scholar, Self-Reliance
Class 3:
-Imagining a Better World: Utopian Communities and Social Change
-Nathaniel Hawthorne’s satire, The Blithedale Romance
Class 4:
-Women in Transcendentalism: Margaret Fuller
Class 5:
-Learning to See: Henry David Thoreau and his genre-bending book Walden
Class 6:
Literary Transcendentalists and Lasting Legacy: Nathaniel Hawtorne, Walt Whitman, John Muir, et al
Class will start and end within 5 minutes of designated time.
