Horace M. Kallen in the Heartland by Michael C. Steiner

Author:Michael C. Steiner [Michael C. Steiner]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

revisiting pluralism and embracing black culture

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Cultural pluralism reappeared in the 1940s as a capacious idea meaning many things to many people. Kallen came late to this widening discussion, revisiting a concept by the early 1950s that he had set aside in the 1920s. This process reflected his penchant for “doubling back to a previous topic” in light of fresh circumstances.1 It was consistent with his restless curiosity and omnivorous interests, and it was sparked by a string of personal and political events that expanded his consciousness.

As he entered his seventies, Kallen continued to publish on a spectrum of issues ranging from books on the future of Israel and theories of comedy to scores of essays on topics varying from civil liberties to adult education.2 He would maintain a deeply engaged, highly productive career throughout his eighties and into his early nineties. A letter to his close friend Milton Konvitz, written in 1957 when he was seventy-five and teaching full-time at the New School, conveyed his continual energy. “During November I shall be on the move,” Kallen wrote, “starting with a journey to Washington, then to Boston, then to Nashville, then to St. Louis. By the beginning of December, I hope to have a stretch of freedom in which I can get back to ‘Art and Freedom.’”3 He kept a vigorous agenda up until his death. In 1967, in his mid-eighties, he returned to Israel and briskly trekked the steep trail to the top of the Masada fortification overlooking the Dead Sea.4 In late 1973, a few months before he died in February 1974, ninety-one-year-old Kallen journeyed in a small plane from Cape Cod, Massachusetts, to Charlottesville, Virginia, to lecture about his recent book on maritime philosophy; and a month after his death his new book, Creativity, Imagination, Logic, was published.5

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