Keywords
Emerson and Thoreau classroom activity, transcendentalism and advertising critique, critical literacy through subvertising
Preview
In this article, I discuss the inspiration, rationale, methodology, and subsequent observations of an activity I designed for my secondary American Literature course that asks students to critically juxtapose modern advertisements through the lens of eighteenth-century Transcendental thinkers Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Framed as a culminating activity at the end of our study of Transcendentalism, the activity’s intentions are twofold: to lead to a creative critique of the two-faced nature of advertising, and to serve as a bridge between what often seems, to students, like the outmoded writings of eighteenth-century philosophers and our modern cultural context.
Recommended Citation
Wright, William
(2017)
"“Subvertising” as a Means of Illustrating Transcendentalist Ideals,"
The Utah English Journal: Vol. 45, Article 7.
Available at:
https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/uej/vol45/iss1/7