Wednesday, November 6, 2002

Web Site Links Ideas of Thoreau, Emerson, and Other Proponents of American Transcendentalism By BROCK READ Transcendentalist thinkers like Henry David Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson are often imagined as eschewing technology in the name of nature. But the transcendentalist movement can actually be seen as a paradigm for the Internet, according to Ann M. Woodlief, an associate professor of English at Virginia Commonwealth University. "The whole movement is like one big hypertext," she says. "These people were very much linked to each other. There are a lot of ideas which got recycled." The parallels between transcendentalist discourse and hypertext linking provided the genesis for the American Transcendentalism Web, Ms. Woodlief's online repository of information about the lives and philosophies of Thoreau, Emerson, and lesser-known philosophers and writers like Margaret Fuller and Orestes Brownson. Ms. Woodlief says that hypertext linking allows her students to create "Web study texts" that represent the transcendentalist movement as it really was: a vibrant movement dominated by the interconnecting ideas of its chief proponents. The site, according to Ms. Woodlief, is both "a labor of love" and a teaching tool that features significant contributions from students in her graduate course on transcendentalist thought. She started the page in 1999, making it the centerpiece of her transcendentalism course: Each student completed course papers, discussed them with his or her peers, and published the work online. Now the Web page has expanded to include criticism and research by Ms. Woodlief and other professors across the country, as well as papers from Ms. Woodlief's more recent graduate courses. American Transcendentalism Web's biggest draws, according to Ms. Woodlief, are online versions of seminal works such as Thoreau's "Resistance to Civil Government" and Emerson's Nature. Some of the works are presented as Web study texts, which are peppered with notes and discussion points that visitors can read by clicking on hyperlinked passages. The study texts -- created by Ms. Woodlief's students -- offer "a coherent presentation of a difficult subject," according to Ms. Woodlief. Other features at the site include biographical sketches of important thinkers, collections of essays analyzing transcendentalism's history and literary merits, and information on the movement's forerunners and its legacy. Scholars are invited to contribute their own papers and Web sites to the online archive. One scholar who has contributed is Martin Bickman, a professor of English at the University of Colorado at Boulder who has written several pieces for the site. Two years ago, Mr. Bickman worked with students in his own course on transcendentalism to create additional papers for the Virginia Commonwealth collection. "The good thing about the site is that [Ms. Woodlief] involved students in the process," says Mr. Bickman. "It's a learning project as well as a research tool." Ms. Woodlief says that she has received a great deal of positive feedback from two groups that might not otherwise have access to many of the materials posted on the site -- high-school teachers and students at universities in Europe who are studying transcendentalism. The site often attracts about 9,000 visitors a month. The site's relatively heavy traffic is a boon to Ms. Woodlief, who says it inspires her students to write their papers with care. "It makes you do better work when you know it's going out to the public," she says. Easy-to-print version E-mail this article

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