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What It Means to Be American?: Creating American National Identity
Zeimannová, Adéla ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
National identity is a complex notion of being and belonging. The multiple selves, out of which the identity is composed of such as gender, class, race, and ethnicity etc. pose a challenge in creating any sort of unified collective national identity that would encompass each individual's unique set of these multiple selves and roles. This complexity is even more pronounced when a national identity of such nations as the U.S. is examined. Due to its multicultural and multiethnic nature, identifying a collective American identity becomes a challenge. This thesis examines the birth of national identity in the U.S. during the Revolutionary era through the time of the Early republic and the period of 1800-1850 in an effort to discover the unifying features of such complex identity and to uncover its origins. The text consults theoretical framework on nation, nationalism and national identity to establish a working definition of a nation and to explain the complexity of the concept which is then further examined in the context of the U.S. In combination with a historical overview of the period 1770-1850, the thesis addresses nationalist feelings and thoughts that permeated the country at the time, examining the first emergence of calls for unified American national identity and the subsequent...
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Emerson's Self-reliance as a Core Value of American Society
Zeimannová, Adéla ; Robbins, David Lee (advisor) ; Roraback, Erik Sherman (referee)
From the time of the establishment of American society till now, themes of self-reliance and freedom belong to the most recognized values of the U.S. Studies have shown that the values of American society, even though they adapted to political and sociological changes, share a common base with their original form. This thesis researches specifically the role of self-reliance in relation to an American essayist, writer and philosopher Ralph Waldo Emerson, and his direct influence in establishing self-reliance along with freedom and individualism as one of the main values of American society. This study aims to determine how Emerson's theory of self-reliance and his ideology influence the thinking of modern America, and whether the values cultivated by him are still present in modern U.S. society. The focus of this research lies primarily on how Emerson's ideology has implanted into the minds of Americans from the time of the changing nineteenth century American society, and the birth of this ideology, to its present-day significance in modern-day America. The main source of Emerson's thinking and refinement of his theory of self-reliance is his essay entitled "Self-reliance," in which he defines his theory. His other works, primarily his other essays, Nature, "History," and his sermons and journals...
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