Progressivism's Aesthetic Education

During the Progressive Era in the United States, as teaching became professionalized and compulsory attendance laws were passed, the public school emerged as a cultural authority. What did accepting this authority mean for Americans' conception of self-government and their freedom of thought? And what did it mean for the role of artists and intellectuals within democratic society? Jesse Raber argues that the bildungsroman negotiated this tension between democratic autonomy and cultural authority, reprising an old role for the genre in a new social and intellectual context. Considering novels by Abraham Cahan, Willa Cather, and Charlotte Perkins Gilman alongside the educational thought of John Dewey, the Montessorians, the American Herbartians, and the social efficiency educators, Raber traces the development of an aesthetics of social action. Richly sourced and vividly narrated, this book is a creative intervention in the fields of literary criticism, pragmatic philosophy, aesthetic theory, and the history of education.

Brings together the fields of intellectual history, bildungsroman criticism, the history of education, and philosophy Draws upon rarely-used archival sources on educational theory Reconsiders pragmatist aesthetics with a new emphasis on the role of cultural authority within a democratic community One of the first books to include not just American novels, but also American intellectuals, in the theory of the bildungsroman

Auteur
Jesse Raber teaches English at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, USA.

Contenu

1. Introduction: Progressivism's Aesthetic Education.- 2. The Doctrine of Interest: Abraham Cahan and the Herbartians.- 3. The Classroom Démueblé: Willa Cather and Maria Montessori.- 4. Herland and Zond: Charlotte Perkins Gilman and the Social Efficiency Educators.- 5. Living Has Its Own Intrinsic Quality: John Dewey's Aesthetic Education.