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Emerson, China, and the Uses of Literature
- J19: The Journal of Nineteenth-Century Americanists
- University of Pennsylvania Press
- Volume 1, Number 2, Fall 2013
- pp. 285-313
- 10.1353/jnc.2013.0029
- Article
- Additional Information
This essay reconceptualizes Ralph Waldo Emerson's transnationalism. Emerson took an active interest in China late in his career amidst emerging national fantasies of Sino-American collaboration and took this opportunity to rearticulate an earlier theory of social reform: the notion that one can be non-dialectically jolted into a new idea/opinion/doxa without committing to said idea/opinion/doxa. Emerson's unorthodox thoughts on China and China's own use of its literature can help us adjust the prospect of China's role in ninteenth-century American letters and, more importantly, help us fill in the logical steps between his late reform politics and his lifelong endorsement of Universal intellectual socialism.