Cultural Pluralism and the American Idea

Cultural Pluralism and the American Idea

Author: Horace Meyer Kallen

Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press

Published: 2017-01-31

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13: 1512817201

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This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.


Book Synopsis Cultural Pluralism and the American Idea by : Horace Meyer Kallen

Download or read book Cultural Pluralism and the American Idea written by Horace Meyer Kallen and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2017-01-31 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book is a volume in the Penn Press Anniversary Collection. To mark its 125th anniversary in 2015, the University of Pennsylvania Press rereleased more than 1,100 titles from Penn Press's distinguished backlist from 1899-1999 that had fallen out of print. Spanning an entire century, the Anniversary Collection offers peer-reviewed scholarship in a wide range of subject areas.


American Thought and Culture in the 21st Century

American Thought and Culture in the 21st Century

Author: Martin Halliwell

Publisher: Edinburgh University Press

Published: 2008-10-07

Total Pages: 336

ISBN-13: 0748631321

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Will the twenty-first century be the next American Century? Will American power and ideas dominate the globe in the coming years? Or is the prestige of the United States likely to crumble beneath the pressure of new international challenges? This ground-breaking book explores the changing patterns of American thought and culture at the dawn of the new millennium, when the world's richest nation has never been more powerful or more controversial. It brings together some of the most eminent North American and European thinkers to investigate the crucial issues and challenges facing the United States during the early years of our new century.From the subterranean political shifts beneath the electoral landscape to the latest biomedical advances, from the literary response to 9/11 to the rise of reality television, this book explores the political, social and cultural contours of contemporary American life - but it also places the United States within a global narrative of commerce, cultural exchange, i


Book Synopsis American Thought and Culture in the 21st Century by : Martin Halliwell

Download or read book American Thought and Culture in the 21st Century written by Martin Halliwell and published by Edinburgh University Press. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Will the twenty-first century be the next American Century? Will American power and ideas dominate the globe in the coming years? Or is the prestige of the United States likely to crumble beneath the pressure of new international challenges? This ground-breaking book explores the changing patterns of American thought and culture at the dawn of the new millennium, when the world's richest nation has never been more powerful or more controversial. It brings together some of the most eminent North American and European thinkers to investigate the crucial issues and challenges facing the United States during the early years of our new century.From the subterranean political shifts beneath the electoral landscape to the latest biomedical advances, from the literary response to 9/11 to the rise of reality television, this book explores the political, social and cultural contours of contemporary American life - but it also places the United States within a global narrative of commerce, cultural exchange, i


Our America

Our America

Author: Walter Benn Michaels

Publisher: Duke University Press

Published: 1995

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9780822320647

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Arguing that the contemporary commitment to the importance of cultural identity has renovated rather than replaced an earlier commitment to racial identity, Walter Benn Michaels asserts that the idea of culture, far from constituting a challenge to racism, is actually a form of racism. Our America offers both a provocative reinterpretation of the role of identity in modernism and a sustained critique of the role of identity in postmodernism. "We have a great desire to be supremely American," Calvin Coolidge wrote in 1924. That desire, Michaels tells us, is at the very heart of American modernism, giving form and substance to a cultural movement that would in turn redefine America's cultural and collective identity--ultimately along racial lines. A provocative reinterpretation of American modernism, Our America also offers a new way of understanding current debates over the meaning of race, identity, multiculturalism, and pluralism. Michaels contends that the aesthetic movement of modernism and the social movement of nativism came together in the 1920s in their commitment to resolve the meaning of identity--linguistic, national, cultural, and racial. Just as the Johnson Immigration Act of 1924, which excluded aliens, and the Indian Citizenship Act of the same year, which honored the truly native, reconceptualized national identity, so the major texts of American writers such as Cather, Faulkner, Hurston, and Williams reinvented identity as an object of pathos--something that can be lost or found, defended or betrayed. Our America is both a history and a critique of this invention, tracing its development from the white supremacism of the Progressive period through the cultural pluralism of the Twenties. Michaels's sustained rereading of the texts of the period--the canonical, the popular, and the less familiar--exposes recurring concerns such as the reconception of the image of the Indian as a symbol of racial purity and national origins, the relation between World War I and race, contradictory appeals to the family as a model for the nation, and anxieties about reproduction that subliminally tie whiteness and national identity to incest, sterility, and impotence.


Book Synopsis Our America by : Walter Benn Michaels

Download or read book Our America written by Walter Benn Michaels and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 1995 with total page 220 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Arguing that the contemporary commitment to the importance of cultural identity has renovated rather than replaced an earlier commitment to racial identity, Walter Benn Michaels asserts that the idea of culture, far from constituting a challenge to racism, is actually a form of racism. Our America offers both a provocative reinterpretation of the role of identity in modernism and a sustained critique of the role of identity in postmodernism. "We have a great desire to be supremely American," Calvin Coolidge wrote in 1924. That desire, Michaels tells us, is at the very heart of American modernism, giving form and substance to a cultural movement that would in turn redefine America's cultural and collective identity--ultimately along racial lines. A provocative reinterpretation of American modernism, Our America also offers a new way of understanding current debates over the meaning of race, identity, multiculturalism, and pluralism. Michaels contends that the aesthetic movement of modernism and the social movement of nativism came together in the 1920s in their commitment to resolve the meaning of identity--linguistic, national, cultural, and racial. Just as the Johnson Immigration Act of 1924, which excluded aliens, and the Indian Citizenship Act of the same year, which honored the truly native, reconceptualized national identity, so the major texts of American writers such as Cather, Faulkner, Hurston, and Williams reinvented identity as an object of pathos--something that can be lost or found, defended or betrayed. Our America is both a history and a critique of this invention, tracing its development from the white supremacism of the Progressive period through the cultural pluralism of the Twenties. Michaels's sustained rereading of the texts of the period--the canonical, the popular, and the less familiar--exposes recurring concerns such as the reconception of the image of the Indian as a symbol of racial purity and national origins, the relation between World War I and race, contradictory appeals to the family as a model for the nation, and anxieties about reproduction that subliminally tie whiteness and national identity to incest, sterility, and impotence.


Democracy Versus the Melting Pot

Democracy Versus the Melting Pot

Author: Horace Kallen

Publisher: Cosimo Classics

Published: 2020-02-17

Total Pages: 48

ISBN-13: 9781646790012

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Democracy versus the Melting Pot was published in The Nation magazine by Horace Kallen in 1915, at a time when the United States were receiving the largest influx of immigrants in history.


Book Synopsis Democracy Versus the Melting Pot by : Horace Kallen

Download or read book Democracy Versus the Melting Pot written by Horace Kallen and published by Cosimo Classics. This book was released on 2020-02-17 with total page 48 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Democracy versus the Melting Pot was published in The Nation magazine by Horace Kallen in 1915, at a time when the United States were receiving the largest influx of immigrants in history.


Culture Wars and Enduring American Dilemmas

Culture Wars and Enduring American Dilemmas

Author: Irene Taviss Thomson

Publisher: University of Michigan Press

Published: 2018-03-22

Total Pages: 279

ISBN-13: 0472900919

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"Irene Taviss Thomson gives us a nuanced portrait of American social politics that helps explain both why we are drawn to the idea of a 'culture war' and why that misrepresents what is actually going on." ---Rhys H. Williams, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Loyola University Chicago "An important work showing---beneath surface conflict---a deep consensus on a number of ideals by social elites." ---John H. Evans, Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego The idea of a culture war, or wars, has existed in America since the 1960s---an underlying ideological schism in our country that is responsible for the polarizing debates on everything from the separation of church and state, to abortion, to gay marriage, to affirmative action. Irene Taviss Thomson explores this notion by analyzing hundreds of articles addressing hot-button issues over two decades from four magazines: National Review, Time, The New Republic, and The Nation, as well as a wide array of other writings and statements from a substantial number of public intellectuals. What Thomson finds might surprise you: based on her research, there is no single cultural divide or cultural source that can account for the positions that have been adopted. While issues such as religion, homosexuality, sexual conduct, and abortion have figured prominently in public discussion, in fact there is no single thread that unifies responses to each of these cultural dilemmas for any of the writers. Irene Taviss Thomson is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, having taught in the Department of Social Sciences and History at Fairleigh Dickinson University for more than 30 years. Previously, she taught in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University.


Book Synopsis Culture Wars and Enduring American Dilemmas by : Irene Taviss Thomson

Download or read book Culture Wars and Enduring American Dilemmas written by Irene Taviss Thomson and published by University of Michigan Press. This book was released on 2018-03-22 with total page 279 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Irene Taviss Thomson gives us a nuanced portrait of American social politics that helps explain both why we are drawn to the idea of a 'culture war' and why that misrepresents what is actually going on." ---Rhys H. Williams, Professor and Chair, Department of Sociology, Loyola University Chicago "An important work showing---beneath surface conflict---a deep consensus on a number of ideals by social elites." ---John H. Evans, Department of Sociology, University of California, San Diego The idea of a culture war, or wars, has existed in America since the 1960s---an underlying ideological schism in our country that is responsible for the polarizing debates on everything from the separation of church and state, to abortion, to gay marriage, to affirmative action. Irene Taviss Thomson explores this notion by analyzing hundreds of articles addressing hot-button issues over two decades from four magazines: National Review, Time, The New Republic, and The Nation, as well as a wide array of other writings and statements from a substantial number of public intellectuals. What Thomson finds might surprise you: based on her research, there is no single cultural divide or cultural source that can account for the positions that have been adopted. While issues such as religion, homosexuality, sexual conduct, and abortion have figured prominently in public discussion, in fact there is no single thread that unifies responses to each of these cultural dilemmas for any of the writers. Irene Taviss Thomson is Professor Emeritus of Sociology, having taught in the Department of Social Sciences and History at Fairleigh Dickinson University for more than 30 years. Previously, she taught in the Department of Sociology at Harvard University.


An American Friendship

An American Friendship

Author: David Weinfeld

Publisher: Cornell University Press

Published: 2022-05-15

Total Pages: 265

ISBN-13: 1501763105

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In An American Friendship, David Weinfeld presents the biography of an idea, cultural pluralism, the intellectual precursor to modern multiculturalism. He roots its origins in the friendship between two philosophers, Jewish immigrant Horace Kallen and African American Alain Locke, who advanced cultural pluralism in opposition to both racist nativism and the assimilationist "melting pot." It is a simple idea—different ethnic groups can and should coexist in the United States, perpetuating their cultures for the betterment of the country as whole—and it grew out of the lived experience of this friendship between two remarkable individuals. Kallen, a founding faculty member of the New School for Social Research, became a leading American Zionist. Locke, the first Black Rhodes Scholar, taught at Howard University and is best known as the intellectual godfather of the Harlem Renaissance and the editor of The New Negro in 1925. Their friendship began at Harvard and Oxford during the years 1906 through 1908 and was rekindled during the Great Depression, growing stronger until Locke's death in 1954. To Locke and Kallen, friendship itself was a metaphor for cultural pluralism, exemplified by people who found common ground while appreciating each other's differences. Weinfeld demonstrates how this understanding of cultural pluralism offers a new vision for diverse societies across the globe. An American Friendship provides critical background for understanding the conflicts over identity politics that polarize US society today.


Book Synopsis An American Friendship by : David Weinfeld

Download or read book An American Friendship written by David Weinfeld and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-15 with total page 265 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In An American Friendship, David Weinfeld presents the biography of an idea, cultural pluralism, the intellectual precursor to modern multiculturalism. He roots its origins in the friendship between two philosophers, Jewish immigrant Horace Kallen and African American Alain Locke, who advanced cultural pluralism in opposition to both racist nativism and the assimilationist "melting pot." It is a simple idea—different ethnic groups can and should coexist in the United States, perpetuating their cultures for the betterment of the country as whole—and it grew out of the lived experience of this friendship between two remarkable individuals. Kallen, a founding faculty member of the New School for Social Research, became a leading American Zionist. Locke, the first Black Rhodes Scholar, taught at Howard University and is best known as the intellectual godfather of the Harlem Renaissance and the editor of The New Negro in 1925. Their friendship began at Harvard and Oxford during the years 1906 through 1908 and was rekindled during the Great Depression, growing stronger until Locke's death in 1954. To Locke and Kallen, friendship itself was a metaphor for cultural pluralism, exemplified by people who found common ground while appreciating each other's differences. Weinfeld demonstrates how this understanding of cultural pluralism offers a new vision for diverse societies across the globe. An American Friendship provides critical background for understanding the conflicts over identity politics that polarize US society today.


Cultural Pluralism and Psychoanalysis

Cultural Pluralism and Psychoanalysis

Author: Alan Roland

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-08-21

Total Pages: 250

ISBN-13: 1135234272

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Cultural Pluralism and Psychoanalysis explores the creative dialogue that the major psychoanalysts since Freud have had with the modern Northern European/North American culture of individualism and tries to resolve major problems that occur when psychoanalysis, with its cultural legacy of individualism, is applied to those from various Asian cultures. Roland examines the theoretical issues involved in developing a multicultural psychoanalysis, and then looks at the interface between Asian-Americans and other Americans, discussing the frequent dissonances, miscommunications, and misunderstandings that result from each coming from vastly different cultural and psychological realms.


Book Synopsis Cultural Pluralism and Psychoanalysis by : Alan Roland

Download or read book Cultural Pluralism and Psychoanalysis written by Alan Roland and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2013-08-21 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cultural Pluralism and Psychoanalysis explores the creative dialogue that the major psychoanalysts since Freud have had with the modern Northern European/North American culture of individualism and tries to resolve major problems that occur when psychoanalysis, with its cultural legacy of individualism, is applied to those from various Asian cultures. Roland examines the theoretical issues involved in developing a multicultural psychoanalysis, and then looks at the interface between Asian-Americans and other Americans, discussing the frequent dissonances, miscommunications, and misunderstandings that result from each coming from vastly different cultural and psychological realms.


The Unmaking of Americans

The Unmaking of Americans

Author: John J. Miller

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 312

ISBN-13: 068483622X

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Immigrants have always adopted America's ideological principles and striven to become "American". But now there is a war against the whole notion of assimilation; newcomers are encouraged to maintain their own separate cultural identity. In the tradition of Arthur Schlesinger's "The Disuniting of America", this commonsense manifesto promotes renewing the assimilation ethic in America.


Book Synopsis The Unmaking of Americans by : John J. Miller

Download or read book The Unmaking of Americans written by John J. Miller and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 1998 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Immigrants have always adopted America's ideological principles and striven to become "American". But now there is a war against the whole notion of assimilation; newcomers are encouraged to maintain their own separate cultural identity. In the tradition of Arthur Schlesinger's "The Disuniting of America", this commonsense manifesto promotes renewing the assimilation ethic in America.


The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism

The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism

Author: Daniel Greene

Publisher: Indiana University Press

Published: 2011-04-15

Total Pages: 278

ISBN-13: 0253223342

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Daniel Greene traces the emergence of the idea of cultural pluralism to the lived experiences of a group of Jewish college students and public intellectuals, including the philosopher Horace M. Kallen. These young Jews faced particular challenges as they sought to integrate themselves into the American academy and literary world of the early 20th century. At Harvard University, they founded an influential student organization known as the Menorah Association in 1906 and later the Menorah Journal, which became a leading voice of Jewish public opinion in the 1920s. In response to the idea that the American melting pot would erase all cultural differences, the Menorah Association advocated a pluralist America that would accommodate a thriving Jewish culture while bringing Jewishness into mainstream American life.


Book Synopsis The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism by : Daniel Greene

Download or read book The Jewish Origins of Cultural Pluralism written by Daniel Greene and published by Indiana University Press. This book was released on 2011-04-15 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Daniel Greene traces the emergence of the idea of cultural pluralism to the lived experiences of a group of Jewish college students and public intellectuals, including the philosopher Horace M. Kallen. These young Jews faced particular challenges as they sought to integrate themselves into the American academy and literary world of the early 20th century. At Harvard University, they founded an influential student organization known as the Menorah Association in 1906 and later the Menorah Journal, which became a leading voice of Jewish public opinion in the 1920s. In response to the idea that the American melting pot would erase all cultural differences, the Menorah Association advocated a pluralist America that would accommodate a thriving Jewish culture while bringing Jewishness into mainstream American life.


Patriotic Pluralism

Patriotic Pluralism

Author: Jeffrey Mirel

Publisher: Harvard University Press

Published: 2010-04-30

Total Pages: 388

ISBN-13: 9780674046382

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In this book, leading historian of education Jeffrey E. Mirel retells a story we think we know, in which public schools forced a draconian Americanization on the great waves of immigration of a century ago. Ranging from the 1890s through the World War II years, Mirel argues that Americanization was a far more nuanced and negotiated process from the start, much shaped by immigrants themselves.Drawing from detailed descriptions of Americanization programs for both schoolchildren and adults in three cities (Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit) and from extensive analysis of foreign-language newspapers, Mirel shows how immigrants confronted different kinds of Americanization. When native-born citizens contemptuously tried to force them to forsake their home religions, languages, or histories, immigrants pushed back strongly. While they passionately embraced key aspects of Americanization—the English language, American history, democratic political ideas, and citizenship—they also found in American democracy a defense of their cultural differences. In seeing no conflict between their sense of themselves as Italians, or Germans, or Poles, and Americans, they helped to create a new and inclusive vision of this country.Mirel vividly retells the epic story of one of the great achievements of American education, which has profound implications for the Americanization of immigrants today.


Book Synopsis Patriotic Pluralism by : Jeffrey Mirel

Download or read book Patriotic Pluralism written by Jeffrey Mirel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2010-04-30 with total page 388 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this book, leading historian of education Jeffrey E. Mirel retells a story we think we know, in which public schools forced a draconian Americanization on the great waves of immigration of a century ago. Ranging from the 1890s through the World War II years, Mirel argues that Americanization was a far more nuanced and negotiated process from the start, much shaped by immigrants themselves.Drawing from detailed descriptions of Americanization programs for both schoolchildren and adults in three cities (Chicago, Cleveland, and Detroit) and from extensive analysis of foreign-language newspapers, Mirel shows how immigrants confronted different kinds of Americanization. When native-born citizens contemptuously tried to force them to forsake their home religions, languages, or histories, immigrants pushed back strongly. While they passionately embraced key aspects of Americanization—the English language, American history, democratic political ideas, and citizenship—they also found in American democracy a defense of their cultural differences. In seeing no conflict between their sense of themselves as Italians, or Germans, or Poles, and Americans, they helped to create a new and inclusive vision of this country.Mirel vividly retells the epic story of one of the great achievements of American education, which has profound implications for the Americanization of immigrants today.