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Full-Text Articles in American Studies
A Genealogy Of Self-Development In Modern America, Kelsey M. Binder
A Genealogy Of Self-Development In Modern America, Kelsey M. Binder
English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)
This article offers a hypothetical conversation between various authors and creators who have embarked on progressive self-development journeys under the influence of a shared society that intermittently embraces and rejects the structures of the American Dream. While examining the instinctive human motives that cause the radical decision to actualize one’s life, this paper attempts to bridge the psychology of the desire for personal growth to our influential cultural landscape. It explores and analyzes the self-development journeys of individuals such as William Least Heat-Moon and Chris McCandless, as well as the recent message of self-development found in a cinematic pop culture …
The Influence Of Individualistic Ideas On American Mobility, Markus Magiera
The Influence Of Individualistic Ideas On American Mobility, Markus Magiera
English Department: Traveling American Modernism (ENG 366, Fall 2018)
In this paper I showcase the influence of individualistic thinking ranging back as far as Age of Enlightenment on the development of mobility in America since the eighteenth century. My goal is to identify the factors that shaped the evolution of travel. In order to do so I start by analyzing texts from the early nineteenth century, where travel by foot was the common thing. Next I focus on new means of mobility; first the bicycle, and later on the automobile. I aim to convince that modernity's main instigator was the change in thinking brought forth in the Age of …