Abstract

Randolph Bourne was a seminal figure in the pre-war rebellion of the twentieth century, a critic of U.S. military intervention in World War I and a proponent of cultural pluralism or "trans-nationalism." His oeuvre, amounting to over 1500 articles, several volumes of essays, hundreds of letters and a dozen unpublished manuscripts reveals a breadth of vision that few intellectuals have matched since. The dissertation analyses Bourne's writings from the perspective of "generational autobiography," and places his thought within a Nietzschean framework, as attempting to reconcile the opposing currents in modernist thought--the "dionysian" and the "apollonian"--into a new form of discourse and cultural ideal. Chapter One provides the political and theoretical context to Bourne's theories. Chapter Two, "Creating a 'Personality,' thinspace" analyses his ideal of a "vital and glowing" personality, meant as a emblemmatic symbol for his generation in confronting the challenges of modernity. Chapter Three, "Ishmael," traces Bourne's early transformation as a handicapped child of Puritan lineage to his "pagan" rebirth as a "young radical." Chapter 4, "Irony and Radicalism," outlines the latter stage of his "transvaluation of values," culminating in a stance of radical irony, consciously combining the poetical and the experimental approaches to critical judgment. Chapter 5, "Youth and Education," analyses his early advocacy of pragmatism, Dewey's educationism and the feminist movement, which Bourne regarded as forms of socialism in practice and means of transvaluing personal relations and preserving the dionysian spirit of youth. Chapter 6, "Intellectuals at War," analyses Bourne's critique of the purely instrumental moment in social reform, its nature and limits, and the deceptions of the "Anglo-Saxon" preoccupation with "mastery" and control, leading to the support of the "young intellectuals" for a militant nationalism. Finally, Chapter 7, "Trans-National America," outlines Bourne's critique of the illusions of ethnic assimilation and the melting pot ideal, advocating in its place the revitalization of political culture in an ethnic and practice of trans-nationalism or cosmopolitanism, and supporting, in particular, the non-statist, counter-cultural politics of America's immigrant, bohemian, student and working class communities