The Public Intellectualism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and W.E.B. Du Bois: Emotional Dimensions of Race and Reform (Cognitive Studies in Literature and Performance)

In The Public Intellectualism of Ralph Waldo Emerson and W.E.B. Du Bois , Ryan Schneider shows how and why two of America’s most influential public intellectuals—writing from opposite sides of the color line—defined race not only in biological and geo-cultural terms but also as an emotional phenomenon. Drawing on and advancing recent work in Cognitive Literary Studies, Critical Race Theory, and the History of Emotions, Schneider comparatively examines the range of feelings Emerson and Du Bois attribute to the experience of racial difference; his innovative close readings reveal the surprising extent to which they conceive of race reform as an emotive process and how expressions of personal feeling underwrite their public commitments to re-imagining black-white relations. Cover......Page 1 Contents......Page 8 Acknowledgments......Page 10 Introduction: The Province of Public Intellectualism: Emerson, Du Bois, Emotion, and Reform Writing......Page 14 1 Race: You'll Know It When You Feel It......Page 36 2 Double Consciousness: It's More Than What You Think......Page 62 3 Losing Your Head: Why Du Bois and Emerson (Mostly) Like John Brown......Page 84 4 Intimate Attachments: Fathers, Sons, and Public Intellectuals......Page 106 Conclusion: Theory of Mind and the Color Line......Page 134 Notes......Page 156 Bibliography......Page 178 C......Page 192 E......Page 193 N......Page 194 T......Page 195 Z......Page 196 In the first in-depth study of the emotional dimensions of Du Bois's and Emerson's writings on public intellectualism, reform, and race, Schneider offers a valuable and eloquent contribution to the critical tradition.