The Cosmopolitan Lyceum: Lecture Culture And The Globe In Nineteenth-century America Project Muse Upcc Books Ebrary

From the 1830s to the 1900s, a circuit of lecture halls known as the "lyceum movement" flourished across the United States. At its peak, up to a million people a week regularly attended talks in local venues, captivated by the words of visiting orators who spoke on an extensive range of topics. The movement was a major intellectual and cultural force of this nation-building period, forming the creative environment of writers and public figures such as Frederic Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Anna Dickinson, and Mark Twain. The phenomenon of the lyceum has commonly been characterized as inward looking and nationalistic. Yet as this collection of essays reveals, nineteenth-century audiences were fascinated by information from around the globe, and lecturers frequently spoke to their fellow Americans of their connection to the world beyond the nation and helped them understand "exotic" ways of life. Never simple in its engagement with cosmopolitan ideas, the lyceum provided a powerful public encounter with international currents and crosscurrents, foreshadowing the problems and paradoxes that continue to resonate in our globalized world. This book offers a major reassessment of this important cultural phenomenon, bringing together diverse scholars from history, rhetoric, and literary studies. The twelve essays use a range of approaches, cover a wide chronological timespan, and discuss a variety of performers both famous and obscure. In addition to the volume editor, contributors include Robert Arbour, Thomas Augst, Susan Branson, Virginia Garnett, Peter Gibian, Sara Lampert, Angela Ray, Evan Roberts, Paul Stob, Mary Zboray, and Ronald Zboray. From the 1830s to the 1900s, a circuit of lecture halls known as the "lyceum movement" flourished across the United States. At its peak, up to a million people a week regularly attended talks in local venues, captivated by the words of visiting orators who spoke on an extensive range of topics. The movement was a major intellectual and cultural force of this nation-building period, forming the creative environment of writers and public figures such as Frederic Douglass, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Anna Dickinson, and Mark Twain. The phenomenon of the lyceum has commonly been characterized as inward looking and nationalistic. Yet as this collection of essays reveals, nineteenth-century audiences were fascinated by information from around the globe, and lecturers frequently spoke to their fellow Americans of their connection to the world beyond the nation and helped them understand "exotic" ways of life. Never simple in its engagement with cosmopolitan ideas, the lyceum provided a powerful public encounter with international currents and crosscurrents, foreshadowing the problems and paradoxes that continue to resonate in our globalized world. This book offers a major reassessment of this important cultural phenomenon, bringing together diverse scholars from history, rhetoric, and literary studies. The twelve essays use a range of approaches, cover a wide chronological timespan, and discuss a variety of performers both famous and obscure.--Amazon.com Introduction / Tom F. Wright -- Part I. Cultivating Cosmopolitanism -- How Cosmopolitan Was The Lyceum, Anyway? / Angela G. Ray -- Women Thinking : The International Popular Lecture And Its Audience In Antebellum New England / Ronald J. Zboray And Mary Saracino Zboray -- Bringing Music To The Lyceumites : The Bureaus And The Transformation Of Lyceum Entertainment / Sara Lampert -- Part Ii. Cosmopolitan Authorship -- Mr. Emerson's Playful Lyceum : Polyvocal Promotion On The Lecture Circuit / Robert Arbour -- With Press And Paddle : William H.h. Murray's Adirondack Lectures And The Making Of A Wilderness Guide / Virginia Garnett -- William James's True American Theory : The Varieties Of Religious Experience And Transatlantic Intellectual Culture / Paul Stob -- Part Iii. Internationalism Or Imperialism? -- Barnum Is Undone In His Own Province : Science, Race, And Entertainment In The Lectures Of George Robins Gliddon / Susan Branson -- The Lyceum As Contact Zone : Bayard Taylor's Lectures On Foreign Travel / Peter Gibian -- The Peripatetic Career Of Wherahiko Rawei : Maori Culture On The Global Chautauqua Circuit, 1893-1927 / Evan Roberts -- Conclusion: Cosmopolitan Medium -- Humanist Enterprise In The Marketplace Of Culture / Thomas Augst -- About The Contributors. Edited By Tom F. Wright. Includes Bibliographical References And Index.