Thoreau's democratic withdrawal : alienation, participation, and modernity / Shannon L. Mariotti.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Mariotti, Shannon L. (Shannon Lee)

Series:

Studies in American thought and culture

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862--Political and social views.

Thoreau, Henry David.

Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862.

Solitude--Political aspects.

Solitude.

Political and social views.

Physical Description:

xviii, 222 pages ; 23 cm.

Place of Publication:

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, [2010]

Summary:

Best known for his two-year sojourn at Walden Pond in Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau is often considered a recluse who emerged from solitude only occasionally to take a stand on the issues of his day. In Thoreau's Democratic Withdrawal, Shannon L. Mariotti explores Thoreau's nature writings to offer a new way of understanding the unique politics of the so-called hermit of Walden Pond. Drawing imaginatively from the twentieth-century German social theorist Theodor W. Adorno, she shows how withdrawal from the public sphere can paradoxically be a valuable part of democratic politics.

Separated by time, space, and context, Thoreau and Adorno share a common belief that critical inquiry is essential to democracy but threatened by modern society. While walking, huckleberrying, and picking wild apples, Thoreau tries to recover the capacities for independent perception and thought that are blunted by "Main Street," conventional society, and the rapidly industrializing world that surrounded him. Adorno's thoughts on particularity and the microscopic gaze he employs to work against the alienated experience of modernity help us better understand the value of Thoreau's excursions into nature. Reading Thoreau with Adorno, we see how periodic withdrawals from public spaces are not necessarily apolitical or apathetic but can revitalize our capacity for the critical thought that truly defines democracy.

In graceful, readable prose, Mariotti reintroduces us to a celebrated American thinker, offers new insights on Adorno, and highlights the striking common ground they share. Their provocative and challenging ideas, she shows, still hold lessons on how we can be responsible citizens in a society that often discourages original, critical analysis of public issues.

Contents:

Damaged life, the microscopic gaze and Adorno's practice of negative dialectics

Alienated existence, focal distancing and Emerson's transcendental idealism

Man as machine : Thoreau and modern alienation

Huckleberrying toward democracy : Thoreau's practices of withdrawal

Traveling away from home : Thoreau's spaces of withdrawal

Alienation and the anti-foundationalist foundation of the self.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN:

9780299233945

0299233944

9780299233938

0299233936

OCLC:

313077993