Clark Davis – författare

A biography of a long-forgotten but vital American Transcendentalist poet.  In September of 1838, a few months after Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his controversial Divinity School address, a twenty-five-year-old tutor and divinity student at Harvard named Jones Very stood before his beginning Greek class and proclaimed himself “the second coming.” Over the next twenty months, despite a brief confinement in a mental hospital, he would write more than three hundred sonnets, many of them in the voice of a prophet such as John the Baptist or even of Christ himself—all, he was quick to claim, dictated to him by the Holy Spirit.  Befriended by the major figures of the Transcendentalist movement, Very strove to convert, among others, Elizabeth and Sophia Peabody, Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and most significantly, Emerson himself. Though shocking to some, his message was simple: by renouncing the individual will, anyone can become a “son of God” and thereby usher in a millennialist heaven on earth. Clark Davis’s masterful biography shows how Very came to embody both the full radicalism of Emersonian ideals and the trap of isolation and emptiness that lay in wait for those who sought complete transcendence.  God’s Scrivener tells the story of Very’s life, work, and influence in depth, recovering the startling story of a forgotten American prophet, a “brave saint” whose life and work are central to the development of poetry and spirituality in America.

A biography of a long-forgotten but vital American Transcendentalist poet.   In September of 1838, a few months after Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his controversial Divinity School address, a twenty-five-year-old tutor and divinity student at Harvard named Jones Very stood before his beginning Greek class and proclaimed himself “the second coming.” Over the next twenty months, despite a brief confinement in a mental hospital, he would write more than three hundred sonnets, many of them in the voice of a prophet such as John the Baptist or even of Christ himself—all, he was quick to claim, dictated to him by the Holy Spirit.   Befriended by the major figures of the Transcendentalist movement, Very strove to convert, among others, Elizabeth and Sophia Peabody, Bronson Alcott, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and most significantly, Emerson himself. Though shocking to some, his message was simple: by renouncing the individual will, anyone can become a “son of God” and thereby usher in a millennialist heaven on earth. Clark Davis’s masterful biography shows how Very came to embody both the full radicalism of Emersonian ideals and the trap of isolation and emptiness that lay in wait for those who sought complete transcendence.   God’s Scrivener tells the story of Very’s life, work, and influence in depth, recovering the startling story of a forgotten American prophet, a “brave saint” whose life and work are central to the development of poetry and spirituality in America.

America's white-collar workers form the core of the nation's corporate economy and its expansive middle class. But just a century ago, white-collar jobs were new and their future anything but certain. In Company Men Clark Davis places the corporate office at the heart of American social and cultural history, examining how the nation's first generation of white-collar men created new understandings of masculinity, race, community, and success-all of which would dominate American experience for decades to come. Company Men is set in Los Angeles, the nation's "corporate frontier" of the early twentieth century. Davis shows how this California city-often considered on the fringe of American society for the very reason that it was new and growing so rapidly-displayed in sharp contours how America's corporate culture developed. The young men who left their rural homes for southern California a century ago not only helped build one of the world's great business centers, but also redefined middle-class values and morals.Of interest to students of business history, gender studies, and twentieth-century culture, this work focuses on the "company man" as a pivotal actor in the saga of modern American history.

In Hawthorne's Shyness, Clark Davis offers both a challenge to current trends in American literary studies and a striking new perspective on the writing of Nathaniel Hawthorne. He proposes an alternative to recent, ideologically driven criticism, including the range of approaches under the banner of New Historicism which continue to dominate the study of American literature. Drawing on ethical theorists including Heidegger, Levinas, Davidson, and Cavell, he finds new models for the relationship between critic and author in their philosophies of engagement with the Other. While these ideas have been increasingly influential in the criticism of European literature, they have so far made fewer inroads into American letters. Davis shows how a "hermeneutics of respect" can transform our relationship to American writers and provide a new, complex understanding of authorial intention. What makes Davis's work particularly effective, however, is the close integration of his methodological argument with its application. He directly and convincingly reexamines much of the most important current scholarship on Hawthorne, carefully developing and distinguishing his own positions.This important new reading of a central figure in American literary history, significant in its own right, also powerfully demonstrates the potential of Davis's critical approach.

Contextualizes Herman Melville's short fiction and poetry by studying it in the company of the more familiar fiction of the 1850s era  The study focuses on Melville's vision of the purpose and function of language from Moby-Dick through Billy Budd with a special emphasis on how language-in function and form-follows and depends on the function and form of the body, how Melville's attitude toward words echoes his attitude toward fish. Davis begins by locating and describing the fundamental dialectic formulated in Moby-Dick in the characters of Ahab and Ishmael. This dialectic produces two visions of bodily reality and two corresponding visions of language: Ahab's, in which language is both weapon and substitute body, and Ishmael's, in which language is an extension of the body-a medium of explanation, conversation, and play. These two forms of language provide a key to understanding the difficult relationships and formal changes in Melville's writings after Moby-Dick.  By following each work's attitude toward the dialectic, we can see the contours of the later career more clearly and so begin a movement away from weakly contextualized readings of individual novels and short stories to a more complete consideration of Melville's career. Since the rediscovery of Herman Melville in the early decades of this century, criticism has been limited to the prose in general and to a few major works in particular.  Those who have given significant attention to the short fiction and poetry have done so frequently out of context, that is, in multi-author works devoted exclusively to these genres. The result has been a criticism with large gaps, most especially for works from Melville's later career. The relative lack of interest in the poetry has left us with little understanding of how Melville's later voices developed, of how the novels evolved into tales, the tales into poetry, and the poetry back into prose. In short, the development of Melville's art during the final three decades of his life remains a subject of which we have been afforded only glimpses, rarely a continuous attention. After the Whale provides a new, more comprehensive understanding of Melville's growth as a writer.

With a land mass one and half times larger than the United Kingdom, a population of more than thirty million, and an economy that would rank sixth among world nations, the history of the state of California demands a closer look.The Human Tradition in California captures the region's rich history and diversity, taking readers into the daily lives of ordinary Californians at key moments in time. These brief biographies show how individual people and communities have influenced the broad social, cultural, political and economic forces that have shaped California history from the pre-mission period through the late-twentieth century. In personalizing California's history, this engaging new book brings the Golden State to life.About the EditorsClark Davis has written extensively about California and its colorful history. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and Pacific Historical Review. He is a professor of history at California State University, Fullerton. David Igler is a long-time historian of California history and culture. He has presented for the Western Historical Association, the Pacific Coast Branch of the American Historical Association, and the California Studies Association. Dr. Igler is professor of history at the University of Utah.

William Goyen was a writer of startling originality and deep artistic commitment whose work attracted an international audience and the praise of such luminaries as Northrop Frye, Truman Capote, Gaston Bachelard, and Joyce Carol Oates. His subject was the land and language of his native East Texas; his desire, to preserve the narrative music through which he came to know his world. Goyen sought to transform the cherished details of his lost boyhood landscape into lasting, mythic forms. Cut off from his native soil and considering himself an “orphan,” Goyen brought modernist alienation and experimentation to Texas materials. The result was a body of work both sophisticated and handmade-and a voice at once inimitable and unmistakable.It Starts with Trouble is the first complete account of Goyen’s life and work. It uncovers the sources of his personal and artistic development, from his early years in Trinity, Texas, through his adolescence and college experience in Houston; his Navy service during World War II; and the subsequent growth of his writing career, which saw the publication of five novels, including The House of Breath, nonfiction works such as A Book of Jesus, several short story collections and plays, and a book of poetry. It explores Goyen’s relationships with such legendary figures as Frieda Lawrence, Katherine Anne Porter, Stephen Spender, AnaÏs Nin, and Carson McCullers. No other twentieth-century writer attempted so intimate a connection with his readers, and no other writer of his era worked so passionately to recover the spiritual in an age of disabling irony. Goyen’s life and work are a testament to the redemptive power of storytelling and the absolute necessity of narrative art.

America's white-collar workers form the core of the nation's corporate economy and its expansive middle class, but at the start of the 20th century, white-collar jobs were new and their future was anything but certain. In this work, Clark Davis places the corporate office at the heart of American social and cultural history, examining how the nation's first generation of white-collar men created new understandings of masculinity, race, community and success - all of which would dominate American experience for decades to come. The text focuses on Los Angeles, the nation's "corporate frontier" of the early 20th century. Davis shows how this Californian city - often considered on the fringe of American society for the very reason that it was new and growing so rapidly - displayed in sharp contours how America's corporate culture developed. The young men who left their rural homes for southern California a century ago not only helped build one of the world's great business centres, they also redefined middle-class values and mores. The book focuses on the "company man" as a pivotal actor in the saga of modern American history.