BOOKS 27: AMERICA'S INTELLECTUAL INDEPENDENCE: RALPH WALDO EMERSON

WITH EDUARDO CADAVA

In 1837 Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered a lecture that Oliver Wendell Holmes, father of our modern Supreme Court, called America's Intellectual Declaration of Independence. What does it mean for America, and us as Americans, to start thinking for ourselves? What does it mean to start our intellectual break from Europe nearly half a century after the American Revolution - and what new forms of living can be envisioned now? Emerson remains the great American philosopher whose essays are far more radical, incisive and important than you would believe when encountering them in high school. I spoke with Eduardo Cadava, Professor at Princeton University and an expert in Emerson, American literature, philosophy, and photography to learn what is distinctly American about Emerson's writing. How do think as Americans, and how do we speak English in truly new ways?