Mesmerism and Feminism: Boston Women's Intellectual Movements in the Antebellum Period

这项研究旨在阐明玛格丽特·富勒、皮博迪姐妹和其他生活在战前波士顿知识界的先验女性对美国文艺复兴的参与和贡献。美国文艺复兴和超验主义思想因过分强调少数白人男性作家而忽视当代女性的活动和贡献而受到批评。这些女性相互激励，点燃了超验主义，这是美国自我发现和向西扩张时代的第一次文化觉醒。通过探讨她们在精神和智力上的超越，这项研究揭示了战前波士顿妇女丰富的文学和政治活动，以及她们与美国文艺复兴和超验主义的关系，这些关系是围绕爱默生、梭罗、霍桑、梅尔维尔和惠特曼等白人男性杰出人物而形成的。

This study aimed to clarify the involvement in and contribution to the American Renaissance by Margaret Fuller, Peabody sisters and other “transcendental” women who lived and moved in the intellectual circles in antebellum Boston. The idea of the American Renaissance and transcendetalism has been criticized for its overemphasizing a small number of white male writers and ignoring contemporary women’s activit ies and contributions. Inspiring each other, these women ignited Transcendentalism, the America’s first cultural awaking in the era of the nation’s self-discovery and the Westward Expansion. By addressing their spiritual and intellectual transcendence, this study shed a new light on the richness of the literary and political activities of antebellum Boston women and their relationships to the American Renaissance and Transcendentalism, which had been formed around the white male luminaries such as Emerson, Thoreau, Hawthorne, Melville, and Whitman.