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Pragmatism, Feminism, and Democracy is James Livingston's virtuoso reflection on the period between 1890 and 1930, a primal scene of American history during which a wave of intellectual currents came together--and fell apart--to reorient society. Tying in critical insights on corporate capitalism, consumer culture, populism, and the American Left, Livingston analyzes the intersections and similarities of pragmatism and feminism to yield an original, provocative blend of historiography, feminist theory, and American intellectual history.
List of contents
Acknowledgements Introduction: Attitudes Toward History Part 1. Pragmatism, Feminism, and the Politics of Historiography Chapter 1. Modern Subjectivity and Consumer Culture: The Revenge of New Women The Terms of the Debate Primal Scenes in American Historiography Epistemology of Excess Chapter 2. Fighting the War of Position: The Politics of Pragmatism Pragmatism as a Comic Frame of Acceptance Cultural Criticism and Corporate Capitalism Corporate Capitalism and Cultural Politics Chapter 3. The Strange Career of Social Self From Royce to Wahl to Kojeve Jane Addams, Jessie Taft, and the Social Claim John Dewey on the Self's Determination Chapter 4. Narrative Politics: Richard Rorty at the End of Reform Marxism or Pragmatism? Real or Cultural Politics? Tragedy or Comedy? Appendix: Memo to the Cultural Left, or, How to Be Critical of 'the System' and Crazy About the Country Part 2. Escaping the Economy of Heaven: William James at the Edges of Our Differences Chapter 5. Hamlet, James, and the Woman Question Reinstating the Vague Father and Son Difference and Equality The Worst Kind of Melancholy Chapter 6. Understanding Our Theories: Pragmatism, Feminism, and the End(s) of Capitalism The Gender of Modernity Nietzsche, Butler, James Marxism in Green, Feminism in Red, Populism in Drag Corporate Personality, Bureaucratic Rationality, and Modern Feminism Afterword Index
About the author
James Livingston is a Professor of History at Rutgers University. He is the author of Pragmatism and thePolitical Economy of Cultural Revolution and Origins ofthe Federal Reserve System: Money, Class, and CorporateCapitalism.
Summary
At the turn of the century, new intellectual and cultural currents came together to reorient society. By drawing new connections between these developments, Livingston recasts discussion of the coming of modernity.
