Ralph Waldo Emerson and the Politics of Equality

FAIN: FT-58535-11

T. Gregory Garvey
SUNY Research Foundation, College at Brockport (Brockport, NY 14420-2997)

Book Project: Emerson and the Politics of Equality. Summer Stipend Project: Visit archives relevant to Emerson's revisions of his lecture "Politics" between 1837 and 1844. Write chapter on the evolution of Emerson's political theory during Jacksonian period by analyzing his work on the "Politics" essay. The book reconstructs Emerson's participation in the political debate between those who advocated a universalist definition of equality and those who argued for hierarchical and caste structures between races, genders, and ethnicities.