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Lawrence Buell reflects on a lifetime of reading Emerson and Thoreau, arguing that Transcendentalism is a philosophy of continual self-renewal, calling us at every age to resist conformity, sustain vision, and imagine the world otherwise.

Megan Marshall returns to the lives and words of the Peabody sisters to ask what use Transcendentalism is now. Through their example, Marshall finds that the movement’s enduring promise lies in its demand that thought become deed.

John Kaag revisits Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short story "The Celestial Railroad" to explore how Transcendentalism’s soaring ideals could drift into comfortable illusions—and how figures like Margaret Fuller, Henry David Thoreau, and a changed Ralph Waldo...

"It has been another incredible year here at 42 Francis Avenue. This is my penultimate year as the Center’s Faculty Director, and so I am looking back on eight years and ahead to one more."

Margaret Fuller redefined education as a "reproductive" act. Ulrike Wagner examines how Fuller's criticism and series of Conversations translated Romantic philology into a democratic pedagogy, positioning women’s voices as a medium through which knowledge...

"What you have in your hands, or on your screen, is a showcase of the rich research and programming that this community of scholars produced in the 2024-25 academic year.”