American Labyrinth: Intellectual History for Complicated Times

345 Pages·2018·1.77 MB·English

by  Raymond Haberski Jr,  Andrew Hartman (eds.)

AMERICAN LABYRINTH

AMERICAN
LABYRINTH
Intellectual History for
Complicated Times
Edited by Raymond Haberski Jr.
and Andrew Hartman
CORNELL UNIVERSITY PRESS I THACA AND LONDON
Copyright © 2018 by Cornell University
All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof,
must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the
publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East
State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.
First published 2018 by Cornell University Press
Printed in the United States of America
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Haberski, Raymond J., 1968– editor. | Hartman, Andrew, editor.
Title: American labyrinth : intellectual history for complicated times / edited by
Raymond Haberski Jr. and Andrew Hartman.
Description: Ithaca [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2018. | Includes
bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2018031296 (print) | LCCN 2018032447 (ebook) |
ISBN 9781501730221 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501730238 (ret) | ISBN 9781501730214 |
ISBN 9781501730214 (cloth ; alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501730986 (pbk. ; alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: United States—Historiography. | United States—Intellectual life.
Classification: LCC E175 (ebook) | LCC E175 .A4545 2018 (print) | DDC 973—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018031296
We dedicate this book to Charlie and Leo, our history teachers.

Contents
Introduction: Intellectual History for Complicated
Times Raymond Haberski Jr. and Andrew Hartman 1
Section I MAPPING AMERICAN IDEAS
1. Wingspread: So What? James Livingston 11
2. On Legal Fundamentalism David Sehat 21
3. Freedom’s Just Another Word? The Intellectual
Trajectories of the 1960s K evin M. Schultz 38
Section II IDEAS AND AMERICAN IDENTITIES
4. Philosophy vs. Philosophers: A Problem in
American Intellectual History Amy Kittelstrom 55
5. The Price of Recognition: Race and the Making
of the Modern University Jonathan Holloway 71
6. Thanks, Gender! An Intellectual History of
the Gym Natalia Mehlman Petrzela 86
7. Parallel Empires: Transnationalism and Intellectual
History in the Western Hemisphere Ruben Flores 104
Section III DANGEROUS IDEAS
8. Toward a New, Old Liberal Imagination: From
Obama to Niebuhr and Back Again Kevin Mattson 119
9. Against the Liberal Tradition: An Intellectual
History of the American Left Andrew Hartman 132
10. From “Tall Ideas Dancing” to Trump’s Twitter
Ranting: Reckoning the Intellectual History
of Conservatism Lisa Szefel 146
11. The Reinvention of Entrepreneurship Angus Burgin 163
viii CONTENTS
Section IV CONTESTED IDEAS
12. War and American Thought: Finding a Nation
through Killing and Dying Raymond Haberski Jr . 183
13. United States in the World: The Significance of
an Isolationist Tradition Christopher McKnight Nichols 198
14. Reinscribing Religious Authenticity: Religion,
Secularism, and the Perspectival Character of
Intellectual History K. Healan Gaston 223
15. “The Entire Thing Was a Fraud”: Christianity,
Freethought, and African American Culture
Christopher Cameron 239
Section V IDEAS AND CONSEQUENCES
16. Against and beyond Hofstadter: Revising the
Study of Anti-intellectualism Tim Lacy 253
17. Culture as Intellectual History: Broadening
a Field of Study in the Wake of the Cultural
Turn Benjamin L. Alpers 271
18. On the Politics of Knowledge: Science, Conflict,
Power Andrew Jewett 285
Conclusion: The Idea of Historical Context and the
Intellectual Historian Daniel Wickberg 305
Contributors 323
A cknowledgments 327
Index 329
AMERICAN LABYRINTH