James, William
Author(s)
Editor
Date
2004Publisher
SAGE Publications, Inc.
Pages
246 - 247
Language
English
Type
Book ChapterItem Usage Stats
215
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views
107
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Book Title
American Masculinities: A Historical Encyclopedia
Abstract
Through his research and his teaching, the philosopher William James sought to mediate between two concepts of middle-class manhood that developed in U.S. culture from the mid-nineteenth to the early twentieth century. The first concept, rooted in antebellum intellectual, religious, and reform movements such as the Second Great Awakening, transcendentalism, and abolitionism, emphasized moral idealism and the authority of individual conscience. The second concept, which emerged after the Civil War, eschewed this antebellum idealism and defined true manliness in terms of duty, obligation, and a “strenuous life”—understood as a struggle toward masculine physical fitness. James sought to combine the ethical principles that informed antebellum reform movements with the new emphasis on the strenuous life to generate a manly, intellectual individualism.
Keywords
Men's StudiesPermalink
http://hdl.handle.net/11693/51351Published Version (Please cite this version)
http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412956369.n126http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412956369