Transcendentalism: America's First Counterculture
with Tracey Barry Hunt
Five Wednesdays from 3-5 p.m.
January 31, February 7, 14, 21, 28
on Zoom
Class limited to 22 participants
Who were the Transcendentalists? Why do they matter today?
Less than 5 decades after the establishment of the United States, a small group of thinkers in a small town in Massachusetts laid the groundwork for America’s first counterculture. They aspired to create an American spirituality, philosophy, ideology, art, and literature – a new American culture – free standing and self-reliant…and accountable to what they saw as the shortcomings of a new nation. They thought, wrote, published, and lectured to challenge the status quo on commerce, race, gender and art from 1830-1860.
This course aims to explore the essential writings of the major Transcendentalists of the mid- 19th Century. We will examine how they wrestled with the moral questions of their day and determine if their ideas about activism and art are still relevant today. Questions we will be considering: Can the Transcendentalists still inspire, provoke, and challenge us? In whom or in what movements do we see their legacy, from the suffragists of Seneca Falls to MLK and BLM, Allen Ginsberg to anti-book banning, Julia Butterfly Hill to Greta Thunberg and beyond. What can we identify as singularly American in the Transcendentalists’ endeavor? What can we learn from their successes and failures nearly two centuries later? Over the course of 5 sessions, we will read and discuss Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, Margaret Fuller, Bronson Alcott, Walt Whitman and others to explore the rich artery the Transcendentalists established in the heart of American culture via activism and art.