The Trial of Curiosity: Henry James, William James, and the Challenge of ModernityIn this important revisionist study, Posnock integrates literary and psychological criticism with social and cultural theory to make a major advance in our understanding of the life and thought of two great American figures, Henry and William James. Challenging canonical images of both brothers, Posnock is the first to place them in a rich web of cultural and intellectual affiliations comprised of a host of American and European theorists of modernity. A startlingly new Henry James emerges from a cross-disciplinary dialogue, which features Veblen, Santayana, Bourne, and Dewey, as well as Weber, Simmel, Benjamin, and Adorno. |
Contents
| 3 | |
The Trial of Curiosity | 25 |
The Challenge of Modernity | 139 |
The Politics of Nonidentity | 285 |
Notes | 293 |
| 337 | |
| 349 | |
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The Trial of Curiosity: Henry James, William James, and the Challenge of ... Ross Posnock Limited preview - 1991 |
The Trial of Curiosity: Henry James, William James, and the Challenge of ... Ross Posnock Limited preview - 1991 |
Common terms and phrases
Adorno aesthetic aestheticism alien Ambassadors American Scene androgynous artistic Autobiography become behavior belief Benjamin bourgeois Bourne chapter concept consciousness context contradiction critical Critical Theory critique cultural curiosity defines describes Dewey Dewey's dialectical difference effort Ellis Island embodies empiricism essay experience expressed feeling finds Frankfurt School freedom genteel Henry James Henry's hotel-spirit Hugo Münsterberg human ideal identity ideology imagination immanent impulse individual insistence intellectual James's Jamesian liberal literary logic Lower East Side margin Marxism master Matthiessen mimesis mimetic mode modern moral Mugwump Münsterberg nature nonidentity noted novel novelist object passion passive philosophy phrase pleasure political possible practice pragmatism Princess Casamassima psychic radical Randolph Bourne rationality reality refusal rejection relation remarks represent representation response Santayana says seeks seems selfhood sense sexual Simmel social society stance Steffens Strether subjectivism suggests surrender theory things thought tradition Trilling Trilling's urban Whitman William James York