Program

Research Programs: Public Scholars

Period of Performance

1/1/2017 - 12/31/2017

Funding Totals

$50,400.00 (approved)
$50,400.00 (awarded)


American Exceptionalism and the Cult of Hawthorne

FAIN: FZ-250436-16

Paul Berman
Unaffiliated independent scholar

A history of the concept of American exceptionalism, including its origins in the 19th-century New York magazine Democratic Review, its relationship with European Romanticism, and its surprising connections with such figures as John Hill Wheeler (ambassador to Nicaragua in the 1850s) and American novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne.

My project: to describe the origins of the grandiose version of American nationalism that is sometimes known as American exceptionalism -- the doctrine that attributes to America a destiny to lead the world from tyranny and oppression into the zone of democracy and prosperity. The doctrine, I will argue, began in New York magazines, 1830s-50s, with backward glances at Puritans and 1776, and was quite sophisticated (my big point). Comparisons to French and European writers will reveal a literary, philosophical and spiritual Romanticism, culminating in a cult of Hawthorne. The doctrine favored the 1848 revolutions. It was uncannily prophetic. And yet, for all its depth and self-critical impulses, it lent itself to atrocities in Latin America and pro-slavery fanaticism -- to be shown with a discussion of Nicaragua filibusters and Hannah Crafts' apposite slave narrative. In sum, American grandiose nationalism, in the beginning: a Hawthornean symbol, profound and ambiguous.





Associated Products

"Whitman and the American Revelation" (Article)
Title: "Whitman and the American Revelation"
Author: Paul Berman
Abstract: The epiphany that led to a national literature’s single greatest achievement: tucked in a prosaic, newly discovered early novel are the seeds of ‘Leaves of Grass’
Year: 2017
Primary URL: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/246344/whitman-american-revelation
Primary URL Description: Tablet is a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture. Launched in June 2009, it’s a project of the not-for-profit Nextbook Inc., which also produces the Nextbook Press Jewish Encounters book series.
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Tablet

"Extreme Diamonds: Paul Valéry and the Last Centennial of 1917" (Article)
Title: "Extreme Diamonds: Paul Valéry and the Last Centennial of 1917"
Author: Paul Berman
Abstract: The French poet saw the coming collapse of civilization. A hundred years later, his ‘The Young Fate’ rings true anew.
Year: 2017
Primary URL: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/251734/paul-valery-and-the-last-centennial-of-1917
Primary URL Description: Tablet is a daily online magazine of Jewish news, ideas, and culture. Launched in June 2009, it’s a project of the not-for-profit Nextbook Inc., which also produces the Nextbook Press Jewish Encounters book series.
Format: Other
Periodical Title: Tablet