About

The best part of Emersonianism is, it breeds the giant that destroys itself. Who wants to be any man’s mere follower? Lurks behind every page. No teacher ever taught that has so provided for his pupil’s setting up independently—no truer evolutionist.

–Walt Whitman

You will find here, lurking behind every page, the work  and teaching  from Professor Sean Ross Meehan’s course “Transcendentalism,” exploring the work of Ralph Waldo Emerson and his literary, philosophical, and pedagogical relations.

Links to the independent work of his pupil’s can be found through the Student Blogs link under Categories.

For more on Professor Meehan’s scholarship and teaching.

His book Mediating American Autobiography: Photography in Emerson, Thoreau, Douglass, and Whitman.

 

 

 

 

His book (edited with Mark Long) Approaches to Teaching the Works of Ralph Waldo Emerson.

 

 

 

 

In 2019 his new book A Liberal Education in Late Emerson: Readings in the Rhetoric of Mind will be published by Camden House.

Professor Meehan also appears periodically in the form of his blog posts, exploring issues and experimenting with ideas from his various courses on writing and American literature:  Literature and Composition: Gutenberg Progenies; American Environmental Writing; The Essay; The Art of Rhetoric; and Transcendentalism: Emerson’s School.

You can find out more about the promise and pleasure of studying the literary arts at Washington College by visiting the English Department here.