Traveling Traditions: Nineteenth-Century Cultural Concepts and Transatlantic Intellectual Networks

284 Pages·2016·3.53 MB·English

by  Erik Redling

TravelingTraditions
Buchreihe der ANGLIA/
ANGLIA Book Series
Edited by
Lucia Kornexl, Ursula Lenker, Martin Middeke,
Gabriele Rippl, Hubert Zapf
AdvisoryBoard
LaurelBrinton,PhilipDurkin,OlgaFischer,SusanIrvine,
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DerekAttridge,ElisabethBronfen,UrsulaK.Heise,VerenaLobsien,
LauraMarcus,J.HillisMiller,MartinPuchner
Volume 53
Traveling
Traditions
Nineteenth-Century Cultural Concepts and
Transatlantic Intellectual Networks
Edited by
Erik Redling
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Contents
Preface vii
Part I: The American Renaissance Revisited
JonathanArac
1 TransatlanticLiteraryNetworks:E.A.PoefromGermanytoRussiato
Chicago 3
WinfriedFluck
2 AmericanRealisminItsTransatlanticContext 17
EllenRedling
3 GenteelPragmatisminNineteenth-CenturyAmericaandGreat
Britain 35
Part II: Cultural Authority and Transatlantic Aesthetics
LeslieButler
4 The(Traveling)ReformTraditioninNineteenth-CenturyAnglo-
America 49
ErikRedling
5 OfHeroesandMockingbirds:TransatlanticTranslationsandtheStruggle
between‘High’and‘Low’CulturesinNineteenth-CenturyAmerica 63
JuliaStraub
6 TheTransatlanticDanteintheNineteenthCentury:LiteraryAuthority
andReceptionHistories 79
GünterLeypoldt
7 TheArtistasHero:Nineteenth-CenturyConceptsofAuthorshipina
TransatlanticPerspective 95
vi Contents
Part III: Broadening the Genteel Circle: Race and Gender
JohnStauffer
8 FrederickDouglass,Photography,andImagination 113
WernerNell
9 RomanticFolkCultureandTheSoulsofBlackFolk:Framingthe
BeginningsofAfrican-AmericanCultureStudiesinCross-Atlantic
TravelingConcepts 139
SabineSielke
10 Fuller,Feminism,ForeignCorrespondence 157
JuliaNitz
11 ByronicHeroinesandDarwinianTypes:SouthernWomen’s(Post-)Bellum
IdentityConstruction 171
Part IV: The Medium is the Message: Transatlantic Media
Networks
RachelTeukolsky
12 StereoscopyandtheGlobalPicturesque 189
ChristopherHanlon
13 OnTransatlanticSimultaneityandMisunderstandingTelegraphy 213
StefanieSchäfer
14 (Un)SettlingNorthAmerica:TheYankeeintheWritingsofJohnNealand
ThomasChandlerHaliburton 231
DanielStein
15 TransatlanticPoliticsasSerialNetworksintheGerman-AmericanCity
MysteryNovel,1850–1855 247
Contributors 267
Index 271
Preface
Inrecentdecades,academicfocusinthehumanitieshasshiftedfromthehisto-
ry of ideas and ‘dead white male’ public intellectuals to pluralistic views of
literatures and cultures. As a consequence of this shift in focus, nineteenth-
century genteel thinkers on both sides of the Atlantic have been pushed to
themarginsofcriticaldiscourse.LeslieButler’sgroundbreakingstudyCritical
Americans:VictorianIntellectualsandTransatlanticLiberalReform(2007)isan
exception. Examining how a group of leading American authors and social
criticsphilosophicallyengagedwithagroupofBritishthinkers,Butlerargues
that“CriticalAmericans”(Butler2007:6)helpedtoshapeaspecifically“Ameri-
can version of liberalism” in the second half of nineteenth-century America
(9).ExtendingButler’sstudyofnineteenth-centurypoliticalandsocialreform-
ers,thisvolumeexaminesthewaysinwhichnineteenth-centuryintellectuals,
a group including women as well as men, negotiate cultural traditions across
theAtlanticOcean.Specialattentionispaidtoasmallgroupofconcepts,such
as ‘realism,’ ‘pragmatism,’ ‘feminism,’ ‘hero,’ the ‘picturesque’ and ‘imagina-
tion.’Althoughembeddedinspecificculturalandartistictraditions,thesecon-
cepts ‘travel’ from one culture to another and are transformed along their
transatlantic journeys in a process described by Dutch cultural theorist Mieke
Bal’sTravellingConceptsintheHumanities(2002).
Even though Bal focuses on concepts that travel from one discipline to
another, her ideas about concepts, the metaphor of traveling, and tradition
have served as a catalyst for the analyses of the diverse transatlantic travel
routesof conceptsfrom specificcultural andaesthetic traditions.Regarding a
“concept-based methodology” as crucial for the interdisciplinary analysis of
culture(Bal2002:5),Balarguesthattheconceptof“concept”itselfis‘elastic,’
ametaphorthathighlightstwoqualitiesofconcepts,“anunbreakablestability
and a near-unlimited extendibility” (14). Concepts, she claims, are primarily
“toolsofintersubjectivity”that“facilitatediscussiononthebasisofacommon
language” and “offer miniature theories” (22). They are also highly mobile:
“Theytravel–betweendisciplines,betweenindividualscholars,betweenhis-
toricalperiods,andbetweengeographicallydispersedacademiccommunities”
(24).Asconceptstravelbackandforthintime,space,anddiscourse,theways
inwhichtheyconstructanddescribeobjectsalsochange.Infactitisthe“trav-
elling nature of concepts” (23) that destabilizes their embedding in firmly de-
fined particular contexts and renders them changeable. Yet they still remain
related to specific contexts or traditions and, like works of art, should not be
perceivedascompletelyisolatedentities withoutanylinktoarespectivecon-
text(cf.216).ReferringtoEricJ.HobsbawmandTerrenceRanger’shighlyinflu-
viii Preface
ential work, The Invention of Tradition (1983), which, as she puts it, contends
that“traditionsareinventions,fictionsofcontinuitynecessaryforaconception
ofhistoryasdevelopmentandprogress”(Bal218),Balcautionsagainstaneasy
dismissal of traditions simply because they are ‘invented,’ especially when
“marginalized groups in danger of cultural dispersal” use traditions “to pro-
mote social cohesion” (218). Instead, she advocates the difficult endeavor of
recovering“theinterestsunderlyingtheinventionoritsagents”(219)andthus
favorsahead-oncriticalengagementwiththeconceptoftradition.
Following the footsteps of Bal’s concept-based methodology for an inter-
disciplinary study of culture, the goal of this volume, then, is to explore the
rolesof“travellingconcepts”andtheirtraditionsastheytakeattimessurpris-
ing paths within ever-widening transnational networks. For this purpose, the
editorhasaskedasmallgroupofdistinguishedexpertsintransatlanticAmeri-
can Studies to focus on the journeys of such traveling concepts and on map-
pingever-growingnetworksofinternationallyorientedthinkersinthesecond
halfofthenineteenthcentury.WhileindebtedtoButler’sworkonsuchfigures
as Thomas Carlyle, Thomas Wentworth Higginson, John Stuart Mill, Charles
Eliot Norton, and John Ruskin, the volume broadens the range of intellectual
exchangestoincludeotherimportantnodesofdialogue.
As a result, this collection of essays covers a broad spectrum of concepts
and transatlantic networks that have been grouped into four parts. Part One,
“The American Renaissance Revisited,” renews the interest in ‘transatlantic
literarynetworks’(JonathanArac),‘realism’(WinfriedFluck)and‘pragmatism’
(EllenRedling)whilePartTwo,“CulturalAuthorityandTransatlanticAesthet-
ics,” investigates ‘reform movements’ (Leslie Butler), ‘literary authority’ (Julia
Straub) and the traveling concept of ‘hero’ (Günter Leypoldt, Erik Redling).
Part Three, “Broadening the Genteel Circle: Race and Gender,” extends the
networksofprimarilywhitemaleintellectualstoincludeAfricanAmericanand
women thinkers: the transatlantic imagination of Frederick Douglass (John
Stauffer), traveling concepts and traditions within African-American circles
(Werner Nell), exchanges over feminism (Sabine Sielke), and transatlantic lit-
eraryconstructionsofidentitybySouthernwomen(JuliaNitz).PartFour,“The
Medium is the Message: Transatlantic Media Networks,” deals with different
types of media and explores the concept of the ‘picturesque’ in stereoscopy
(Rachel Teukolsky), ‘simultaneity’ and telegraphy (Christopher Hanlon), the
concept of the ‘Yankee’ (Stefanie Schäfer) in the novel, and serial popular lit-
erature(citymysteries)andtheroleofGermanAmericanimmigrantsaspublic
intellectuals(DanielStein).
The listof travelingconcepts and transatlanticintellectual networksis by
nomeanscomplete,andthejourneyscouldbeextendedtootherconceptsand
Preface ix
additionalnineteenth-centurythinkersornetworks.However,myhopeisthat
theessaysdemonstratetheimportanceoffocusingontravelingconceptsfrom
thevantageofculturalandaesthetictraditions,forthisperspectivehighlights
hitherto neglected relations and networks in nineteenth-century American
Studies. The essays collected in this volume will hopefully inspire further in-
vestigationswithinorbeyondthetransatlanticdomain.
The volume on hand is the material outcome of the international confer-
ence “Traveling Traditions: Nineteenth-Century Negotiations of Cultural Con-
cepts in Transatlantic Intellectual Networks” that took place at Martin Luther
University Halle-Wittenberg in mid-April 2014. My special thanks go to the
American Studies Team at the MLU Halle-Wittenberg, that is, Anke Hilde-
brandt-Mirtschink, Martin Meyer, Julia Nitz, Christin Reimann, and Kathrin
Schulze-Riewald, who each helped to organize and carry out the conference,
Joe Fruscione and Lisa Munro, who proofread all essays, Jason Stevens for
sharinghisexpertisewithme,andtoMerleWillenberg,whoprovidedvaluable
assistanceineditingtheessaysofthisvolume.Ialsowanttothankthespon-
sors of the conference, especially the U.S.Embassy, the Martin Luther Uni-
versity Halle-Wittenberg, and the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG),
whose support made the conference possible in the first place. Last but not
least, I want to thank the general editors for including this volume in the
ANGLIA Book Series and the editorial team at De Gruyter, Ulrike Krauß and
KatjaLehming,fortheirhelpandcooperationinsomanyways.
ErikRedling(Halle)
Works Cited
Bal,Mieke.2002.TravellingConceptsintheHumanities:ARoughGuide.Toronto:University
ofTorontoPress.
Butler,Leslie.2007.CriticalAmericans:VictorianIntellectualsandTransatlanticLiberal
Reform.ChapelHill:UniversityofNorthCarolinaPress.