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Rereading Randolph Bourne's most known essay \"Trans-National America\" (1916) provides the nowadays reader with a more accurate view perception of the cultural transmutations occurring at the beginning of the last century in America. Reflecting on the contrast between the ideals of liberal republican America and the reality of the assimilation policies, Randolph Bourne disagreed along with other intellectuals of his time with nativist attitudes and policies disfavoring or slighting immigrants and their heritage in twentieth century America. Wrestling to establish a more equitable meaning of the cultural heritage in the actual making of American citizenship, other than the Anglo-Saxon one, Bourne employed William James's concept of 'consciousness', mapping a new cultural content for the idea of 'nation', contributing to the public debate on pluralism. Arguing that American idealism was imperiled by the consequences of melting pot policies, Bourne envisioned modernist America as a 'trans-national' entity holding together a variety of ethnic communities lead by the same lofty democratic goals, assuming that equality of individuals should be paralleled by the equality of ethnic communities. \"Trans-National America\" appears as a landmark in the further evolution of pluralism, combining reformism with the intellectual utopianism in an attempt to enrich the meanings of American exceptionalism in a newly fashioned form. Apparently, the term 'postmodern' occurred for the first time in this early twenty century writing.

There is general consensus that Randolph Bourne was right in his criticism of Dewey's support for U.S. participation in World War One. Bourne's central argument against Dewey was that war is inexorable. War cannot be controlled; pragmatist method becomes inoperable. Jane Addams largely agreed with Bourne, but would question his claim that war's inexorability is absolute. I will use Addams's participation with the U.S. Food Administration to show cracks in the inexorability of war and also to raise questions about the pragmatist grounding of Bourne's attack on Dewey. I argue that although Addams's participation with the Food Administration was in some ways morally ambiguous, it also demonstrated a more throughgoing, pragmatist understanding of democracy than Bourne's critique contained.

This article draws from John Dewey’s philosophy of education, ideas about democracy and pragmatist assumptions to explain how his articles for The New Republic functioned pedagogically. Taking media as a mode of public pedagogy, and drawing extensively from Dewey’s Democracy and Education, as well as from his book The Public and its Problems, the article explores the relationships between communication, education and democracy using the expanded conceptions of all the aforementioned advanced by Dewey. Borrowing insights from Randolph Bourne, who used Dewey’s own ideas to criticize his mentor’s influence on intellectuals who supported US involvement in World War I, the analysis explores the contradictions within Dewey’s public pedagogy. The article suggests Dewey’s relevance as a public intellectual in the liberal-progressive press, his view of the State and some of his related presuppositions produced a tension in his thought, delimiting democratic possibilities while simultaneously pointing toward greater democratic potentials. The essay concludes by suggesting that learning from both Dewey and Bourne prompts us to get beyond the former’s public/private dualism to realize what he called the “Great Community” by communicating and practicing the Commons.

Throughout his career as a literary critic, Alfred Kazin wrote often and with sympathy and insight about Theodore Dreiser, one of the most powerful, panoramic, and compassionate novelists in American literary history. Kazin was an intense reader and writer, committed in his books, essays, and reviews to connecting with and describing the personality of each author he examined. His interpretive work on Dreiser illuminates what it means to be a literary critic and teacher. When we read Kazin in the midst of twenty-first century theory, ideology, and professionalism, we realize all the more clearly the goal in his literary criticism that he aimed for, achieved, and represented—and that now is missing from literary education and experience.

Blake features Randolph Bourne, most penetrating and courageous antiwar intellectual during his days. His essays excoriating his onetime idol John Dewey and other supporters of the Wilson Administration's foreign policy made him a culture hero for subsequent generations of American radicals, but when he showed up at his local draft board on 12 Sep 1918, he had even' reason to fear what the future might hold for him. The Bourne's mind made him \"obviously disqualified for service,\" but it was his body the draft board was interested in. He was a \"deformed\" man, his face mangled and one ear torn by a brutal forceps delivery. Spinal tuberculosis in infancy had stunted his growth and left him a hunchback. His physical appearance induced revulsion in many.

In this essay, I examine two concepts in Royce's work—travel and home—in order to interpret Royce's motivations and interests in conceiving his theory of community and provincialism. Through this examination, I chart the “betweenness relation” throughout his major works in logic, ethics and social and political thought to articulate two requirements of the betweenness relation as a. respecting individuality through the recognition of discrete intermediaries between separate entities and b. recognizing hope—understood as a logical assurance—that connections between disparate entities will emerge. By the end of the paper, I show how this analysis applies to transnational communities as theorized by Randolph Bourne and can offer a shift in thinking how Royce's provincialism can be a resource in understanding the formation of transnational identities.

This article examines the dispute concerning the meaning of World War I among leading American intellectuals in the period 1915–1918. Taking center stage here are the views of one of the founding fathers of American pragmatism, John Dewey (1859–1952), on the causes of the \"Great War,\" its higher meaning and goals which led to America's entry into the War and also its influence on the social reconstruction of American society and the post-War world order. The final section of the article is devoted to a critique of Dewey's position towards American participation in the War by another famous American intellectual, Randolph Bourne (1886–1918), who laid the foundations for a tradition of social criticism in the U.S. in the twentieth century.

There is general consensus that Randolph Bourne was right in his criticism of Dewey's support for U.S. participation in World War One. Bourne's central argument against Dewey was that war is inexorable. War cannot be controlled; pragmatist method becomes inoperable. Jane Addams largely agreed with Bourne, but would question his claim that war's inexorability is absolute. I will use Addams's participation with the U.S. Food Administration to show cracks in the inexorability of war and also to raise questions about the pragmatist grounding of Bourne's attack on Dewey. I argue that although Addams's participation with the Food Administration was in some ways morally ambiguous, it also demonstrated a more throughgoing, pragmatist understanding of democracy than Bourne's critique contained.

Randolph Bourne was considered an outcast from the community of progressive reform intellectuals that had once welcomed him as a most promising acolyte because of his criticism of most of this community to join the Great War. Since so many, on the right and left alike, have justified the Iraq war in strikingly Wilsonian terms, Westbrook examines Bourne's arguments by their pertinence to the current war.