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Academic Papers by Thomas LeCarner

This essay is concerned with Jacques Derrida's theory on gift-giving. He argues that a true gift ... more This essay is concerned with Jacques Derrida's theory on gift-giving. He argues that a true gift is one where neither the giver nor the receiver is aware of the gift as such; this, he claims, is "the impossible." Through close readings of essays by Emerson and Thoreau, I argue that the New England Transcendentalist notion of the gift might provide a possible solution to Derrida's quagmire. A version of this essay will be published in a special Transcendentalist edition of the journal Revue française d'études américaines" in the spring.

This article explores the relationship between the passage of the first US Bankruptcy act in hist... more This article explores the relationship between the passage of the first US Bankruptcy act in history and one of the most widely read novels of the century. The essay is situated around the Panic of 1897 and examines the causes of the panic and the public response to issues of debt, forgiveness, and how Rowson's novel offers commentary on the controversial law of bankruptcy.

This paper challenges the argument that Hawthorne was anti-transcendentalist by examining the rel... more This paper challenges the argument that Hawthorne was anti-transcendentalist by examining the relationship between Emerson's theory of aesthetics, as describe in his essay "Nature," and the structure of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

Syllabi by Thomas LeCarner

Undergrad survey course taught through the lens of law & literature.

Trade Articles by Thomas LeCarner

A brief editorial about the intangible value associated with a custom, hand-made bicycle.

A brief editorial note on the importance of the bicycle in third-world countries.

A feature story on Dr. Andy Pruitt, founder of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine in Boulder,... more A feature story on Dr. Andy Pruitt, founder of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine in Boulder, Colorado.

Feature story written for VeloNews magazine about Phoenix Multisport, an organization dedicated t... more Feature story written for VeloNews magazine about Phoenix Multisport, an organization dedicated to rehabilitating addicts through sport.

Teaching Philosophy by Thomas LeCarner

Myron Simon was one of " those " professors. You know the type. I watched is awe as he spent the ... more Myron Simon was one of " those " professors. You know the type. I watched is awe as he spent the entire quarter lecturing on American Transcendentalism without a single note, pacing back and forth across the front of the classroom, dog-eared novel in hand, with the excitement and wonder of a child. He stoked your curiosity; he made you want to read, to learn, to discover, to grow as a human being. I will always remember him as the professor who, without a drop of hyperbole, changed the course of my life; in fact, I dedicated my dissertation to his memory. There are few professions wherein we have the opportunity, much less the ability, to change someone's life—teaching is one. For me, however, there is a single attribute that sets Professor Simon, and those like him, apart from the dozens of other professors and teachers I have had over the course of my academic life—it is not necessarily expertise in the subject matter, professional accolades, or even a sound knowledge of pedagogical theory. What sets great teachers apart is, quite simply, gratitude. When we teach with gratitude, we teach with passion. As teachers, we have been given a tremendous responsibility to share with others what we have learned. There are many learned professors in the world of academia, but in my experience only a handful recognize how fortunate they are to be able to teach for a living. I am one of those teachers. Having had other careers before coming to academia, I understand, intuitively, how lucky I am to be standing in front of a group of eager, curious students at the start of every semester. When we approach teaching from a place of gratitude, our students see it; they feel it, and they respond to it. I received an email from a former student this past semester wherein she explained, " I came into CU thinking I wanted to be a therapist, but deep down I knew it wasn't truly what I wanted to do. In the span of a semester, you have flipped my entire world around and showed me what it looks like to truly love your job. You treated us all with respect, made us all feel special, and showed us that our voices actually mattered. " It is letters like these that drive me to become the best teacher I can be; but no matter how much I know about teaching composition and rhetoric, or about pedagogical theory, without the gratitude I have for this profession, letters like this would be few, and to me, it would all be for naught. Teaching writing and literature has been the greatest privilege of my life. I see the profession as one that gives me the opportunity to expand the worldview of my students through critical reading and writing, and spirited classroom inquiry and discussion. As I have evolved as a teacher, so too has my philosophy of teaching. I see the teaching of writing and rhetoric as one of the most important roles on the university campus. I did not always think that. I came to graduate school wanting to be a professor of literature—to teach graduate students, and to write esoteric articles and books about fiction or poetry that examined a text from a perspective that no one had ever thought of before. I still feel that the exploration and study of literature is a noble and vitally important pursuit, but teaching writing and rhetoric has captured me in a way I never imagined it could. Teaching writing and rhetoric, if done properly, makes our students not just better writers and thinkers, but better people. My teaching philosophy is guided by a persistent effort to blend the intellectual and the empathetic. For example, I recently designed a freshman composition course around the theme of the " Engaged Citizen. " In this class, we examine what it means to be truly " engaged " ; we debate what our rights, privileges, and responsibilities are as members of a global community in

Papers by Thomas LeCarner

Philosophy and Literature, 2009

Revue Francaise D Etudes Americaines, 2014

Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in ear... more Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in early American novels by examining the relationships among religious sermons, popular fiction, and the emerging federal bankruptcy law. Between the Panic of 1797 and the Panic of 1837, the events which frame this project, the United States experienced three unprecedented cultural events: the passage of the first, and highly controversial, federal bankruptcy law in 1800; the Second Great Awakening; and the rise of the American novel. My dissertation explores the ways in which early American authors responded to the phenomenon of bankruptcy by dramatizing religiously inflected scenes of forgiveness in their work. The project provides a new understanding of how deeply the early American novel was invested in economic affairs, and in efforts to humanize what many perceived to be a ruthless system of early capitalism. Chapter one offers an historical survey of the interrelations of religious and economic conceptions of debt and its forgiveness in Western culture more broadly, providing a close examination of the cultural changes affecting such understandings in the American early republic—particularly the transformation of the concept of debt as a spiritual state into a purely economic one. As indebtedness became a problem understood in purely economic terms, a new discourse about bankruptcy reframed the discussion by attempting to talk about economic and communal life in terms of morality. Chapter Two examines the Panic of 1797 and two of the most popular novels of the period: Susannah Rowson’s Charlotte Temple (1794), and Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette (1797). Reading these novels against a wave of religious sermons on forgiveness, I argue that by constructing novels replete with scenes of both economic and interpersonal forgiveness, Rowson and Foster provide literary responses to two of the central questions in the bankruptcy debate: to whom should the law apply, and under what conditions? My third chapter explores the Panic of 1819 and traces efforts to blend the discourse of spiritual rebirth in the Second Great Awakening with the political discourse on economic rebirth through bankruptcy. As the Second Great Awakening gained momentum, James Fenimore Cooper was literally writing his way out of his own impending bankruptcy. In The Last of the Mohicans, I argue that Cooper uses the structure of the frontier romance itself to both reveal and to attack endless, fruitless, vengeful and ultimately murderous methods of “exchange” that have brought on both the Panic and the destruction of Cooper’s personal family fortune. Chapter Four examines the Panic of 1837 and the Bankruptcy Act of 1841. The depression that precipitated the Act produced an entirely new genre of fiction called “panic fiction” including novels by Hannah Lee, Eliza Follen, and Frederick Jackson. These texts provide very explicit warnings against economic speculation, excessive materialism, and other risky economic practices, while at the same time advocating for the passage of a federal bankruptcy law that would bring both predictability and forgiveness into an arena that these authors, and the much of the public, viewed as corrupt and immoral.

Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in ear... more Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in early American novels by examining the relationships among religious sermons, popular fiction, and bankruptcy law. Between the Panic of 1797 and the Panic of 1837, the events which frame this project, the United States experienced three unprecedented cultural events: the passage of the first, and highly controversial, federal bankruptcy law in 1800; the Second Great Awakening; and the rise of the American novel. My dissertation explores the ways in which early American authors responded to the phenomenon of bankruptcy by dramatizing religiously inflected scenes of forgiveness in their work. The project provides a new understanding of how deeply the early American novel was invested in economic affairs, and in efforts to humanize what many perceived to be a ruthless system of early capitalism. Chapter one offers an historical survey of the interrelations of religious and economic conceptions...

Revue Française d Etudes Américaines, 2014

Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in ear... more Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in early American novels by examining the relationships among religious sermons, popular fiction, and the emerging federal bankruptcy law. Between the Panic of 1797 and the Panic of 1837, the events which frame this project, the United States experienced three unprecedented cultural events: the passage of the first, and highly controversial, federal bankruptcy law in 1800; the Second Great Awakening; and the rise of the American novel. My dissertation explores the ways in which early American authors responded to the phenomenon of bankruptcy by dramatizing religiously inflected scenes of forgiveness in their work. The project provides a new understanding of how deeply the early American novel was invested in economic affairs, and in efforts to humanize what many perceived to be a ruthless system of early capitalism.

Chapter one offers an historical survey of the interrelations of religious and economic conceptions of debt and its forgiveness in Western culture more broadly, providing a close examination of the cultural changes affecting such understandings in the American early republic—particularly the transformation of the concept of debt as a spiritual state into a purely economic one. As indebtedness became a problem understood in purely economic terms, a new discourse about bankruptcy reframed the discussion by attempting to talk about economic and communal life in terms of morality.

Chapter Two examines the Panic of 1797 and two of the most popular novels of the period: Susannah Rowson’s Charlotte Temple (1794), and Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette (1797). Reading these novels against a wave of religious sermons on forgiveness, I argue that by constructing novels replete with scenes of both economic and interpersonal forgiveness, Rowson and Foster provide literary responses to two of the central questions in the bankruptcy debate: to whom should the law apply, and under what conditions?

My third chapter explores the Panic of 1819 and traces efforts to blend the discourse of spiritual rebirth in the Second Great Awakening with the political discourse on economic rebirth through bankruptcy. As the Second Great Awakening gained momentum, James Fenimore Cooper was literally writing his way out of his own impending bankruptcy. In The Last of the Mohicans, I argue that Cooper uses the structure of the frontier romance itself to both reveal and to attack endless, fruitless, vengeful and ultimately murderous methods of “exchange” that have brought on both the Panic and the destruction of Cooper’s personal family fortune.

Chapter Four examines the Panic of 1837 and the Bankruptcy Act of 1841. The depression that precipitated the Act produced an entirely new genre of fiction called “panic fiction” including novels by Hannah Lee, Eliza Follen, and Frederick Jackson. These texts provide very explicit warnings against economic speculation, excessive materialism, and other risky economic practices, while at the same time advocating for the passage of a federal bankruptcy law that would bring both predictability and forgiveness into an arena that these authors, and the much of the public, viewed as corrupt and immoral.

This essay is concerned with Jacques Derrida's theory on gift-giving. He argues that a true gift ... more This essay is concerned with Jacques Derrida's theory on gift-giving. He argues that a true gift is one where neither the giver nor the receiver is aware of the gift as such; this, he claims, is "the impossible." Through close readings of essays by Emerson and Thoreau, I argue that the New England Transcendentalist notion of the gift might provide a possible solution to Derrida's quagmire. A version of this essay will be published in a special Transcendentalist edition of the journal Revue française d'études américaines" in the spring.

This article explores the relationship between the passage of the first US Bankruptcy act in hist... more This article explores the relationship between the passage of the first US Bankruptcy act in history and one of the most widely read novels of the century. The essay is situated around the Panic of 1897 and examines the causes of the panic and the public response to issues of debt, forgiveness, and how Rowson's novel offers commentary on the controversial law of bankruptcy.

This paper challenges the argument that Hawthorne was anti-transcendentalist by examining the rel... more This paper challenges the argument that Hawthorne was anti-transcendentalist by examining the relationship between Emerson's theory of aesthetics, as describe in his essay "Nature," and the structure of Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter.

A brief editorial about the intangible value associated with a custom, hand-made bicycle.

A brief editorial note on the importance of the bicycle in third-world countries.

A feature story on Dr. Andy Pruitt, founder of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine in Boulder,... more A feature story on Dr. Andy Pruitt, founder of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine in Boulder, Colorado.

Feature story written for VeloNews magazine about Phoenix Multisport, an organization dedicated t... more Feature story written for VeloNews magazine about Phoenix Multisport, an organization dedicated to rehabilitating addicts through sport.

Myron Simon was one of " those " professors. You know the type. I watched is awe as he spent the ... more Myron Simon was one of " those " professors. You know the type. I watched is awe as he spent the entire quarter lecturing on American Transcendentalism without a single note, pacing back and forth across the front of the classroom, dog-eared novel in hand, with the excitement and wonder of a child. He stoked your curiosity; he made you want to read, to learn, to discover, to grow as a human being. I will always remember him as the professor who, without a drop of hyperbole, changed the course of my life; in fact, I dedicated my dissertation to his memory. There are few professions wherein we have the opportunity, much less the ability, to change someone's life—teaching is one. For me, however, there is a single attribute that sets Professor Simon, and those like him, apart from the dozens of other professors and teachers I have had over the course of my academic life—it is not necessarily expertise in the subject matter, professional accolades, or even a sound knowledge of pedagogical theory. What sets great teachers apart is, quite simply, gratitude. When we teach with gratitude, we teach with passion. As teachers, we have been given a tremendous responsibility to share with others what we have learned. There are many learned professors in the world of academia, but in my experience only a handful recognize how fortunate they are to be able to teach for a living. I am one of those teachers. Having had other careers before coming to academia, I understand, intuitively, how lucky I am to be standing in front of a group of eager, curious students at the start of every semester. When we approach teaching from a place of gratitude, our students see it; they feel it, and they respond to it. I received an email from a former student this past semester wherein she explained, " I came into CU thinking I wanted to be a therapist, but deep down I knew it wasn't truly what I wanted to do. In the span of a semester, you have flipped my entire world around and showed me what it looks like to truly love your job. You treated us all with respect, made us all feel special, and showed us that our voices actually mattered. " It is letters like these that drive me to become the best teacher I can be; but no matter how much I know about teaching composition and rhetoric, or about pedagogical theory, without the gratitude I have for this profession, letters like this would be few, and to me, it would all be for naught. Teaching writing and literature has been the greatest privilege of my life. I see the profession as one that gives me the opportunity to expand the worldview of my students through critical reading and writing, and spirited classroom inquiry and discussion. As I have evolved as a teacher, so too has my philosophy of teaching. I see the teaching of writing and rhetoric as one of the most important roles on the university campus. I did not always think that. I came to graduate school wanting to be a professor of literature—to teach graduate students, and to write esoteric articles and books about fiction or poetry that examined a text from a perspective that no one had ever thought of before. I still feel that the exploration and study of literature is a noble and vitally important pursuit, but teaching writing and rhetoric has captured me in a way I never imagined it could. Teaching writing and rhetoric, if done properly, makes our students not just better writers and thinkers, but better people. My teaching philosophy is guided by a persistent effort to blend the intellectual and the empathetic. For example, I recently designed a freshman composition course around the theme of the " Engaged Citizen. " In this class, we examine what it means to be truly " engaged " ; we debate what our rights, privileges, and responsibilities are as members of a global community in

Philosophy and Literature, 2009

Revue Francaise D Etudes Americaines, 2014

Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in ear... more Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in early American novels by examining the relationships among religious sermons, popular fiction, and the emerging federal bankruptcy law. Between the Panic of 1797 and the Panic of 1837, the events which frame this project, the United States experienced three unprecedented cultural events: the passage of the first, and highly controversial, federal bankruptcy law in 1800; the Second Great Awakening; and the rise of the American novel. My dissertation explores the ways in which early American authors responded to the phenomenon of bankruptcy by dramatizing religiously inflected scenes of forgiveness in their work. The project provides a new understanding of how deeply the early American novel was invested in economic affairs, and in efforts to humanize what many perceived to be a ruthless system of early capitalism. Chapter one offers an historical survey of the interrelations of religious and economic conceptions of debt and its forgiveness in Western culture more broadly, providing a close examination of the cultural changes affecting such understandings in the American early republic—particularly the transformation of the concept of debt as a spiritual state into a purely economic one. As indebtedness became a problem understood in purely economic terms, a new discourse about bankruptcy reframed the discussion by attempting to talk about economic and communal life in terms of morality. Chapter Two examines the Panic of 1797 and two of the most popular novels of the period: Susannah Rowson’s Charlotte Temple (1794), and Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette (1797). Reading these novels against a wave of religious sermons on forgiveness, I argue that by constructing novels replete with scenes of both economic and interpersonal forgiveness, Rowson and Foster provide literary responses to two of the central questions in the bankruptcy debate: to whom should the law apply, and under what conditions? My third chapter explores the Panic of 1819 and traces efforts to blend the discourse of spiritual rebirth in the Second Great Awakening with the political discourse on economic rebirth through bankruptcy. As the Second Great Awakening gained momentum, James Fenimore Cooper was literally writing his way out of his own impending bankruptcy. In The Last of the Mohicans, I argue that Cooper uses the structure of the frontier romance itself to both reveal and to attack endless, fruitless, vengeful and ultimately murderous methods of “exchange” that have brought on both the Panic and the destruction of Cooper’s personal family fortune. Chapter Four examines the Panic of 1837 and the Bankruptcy Act of 1841. The depression that precipitated the Act produced an entirely new genre of fiction called “panic fiction” including novels by Hannah Lee, Eliza Follen, and Frederick Jackson. These texts provide very explicit warnings against economic speculation, excessive materialism, and other risky economic practices, while at the same time advocating for the passage of a federal bankruptcy law that would bring both predictability and forgiveness into an arena that these authors, and the much of the public, viewed as corrupt and immoral.

Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in ear... more Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in early American novels by examining the relationships among religious sermons, popular fiction, and bankruptcy law. Between the Panic of 1797 and the Panic of 1837, the events which frame this project, the United States experienced three unprecedented cultural events: the passage of the first, and highly controversial, federal bankruptcy law in 1800; the Second Great Awakening; and the rise of the American novel. My dissertation explores the ways in which early American authors responded to the phenomenon of bankruptcy by dramatizing religiously inflected scenes of forgiveness in their work. The project provides a new understanding of how deeply the early American novel was invested in economic affairs, and in efforts to humanize what many perceived to be a ruthless system of early capitalism. Chapter one offers an historical survey of the interrelations of religious and economic conceptions...

Revue Française d Etudes Américaines, 2014

Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in ear... more Of Dollars and Sense proposes a new context for reading dramatic depictions of forgiveness in early American novels by examining the relationships among religious sermons, popular fiction, and the emerging federal bankruptcy law. Between the Panic of 1797 and the Panic of 1837, the events which frame this project, the United States experienced three unprecedented cultural events: the passage of the first, and highly controversial, federal bankruptcy law in 1800; the Second Great Awakening; and the rise of the American novel. My dissertation explores the ways in which early American authors responded to the phenomenon of bankruptcy by dramatizing religiously inflected scenes of forgiveness in their work. The project provides a new understanding of how deeply the early American novel was invested in economic affairs, and in efforts to humanize what many perceived to be a ruthless system of early capitalism.

Chapter one offers an historical survey of the interrelations of religious and economic conceptions of debt and its forgiveness in Western culture more broadly, providing a close examination of the cultural changes affecting such understandings in the American early republic—particularly the transformation of the concept of debt as a spiritual state into a purely economic one. As indebtedness became a problem understood in purely economic terms, a new discourse about bankruptcy reframed the discussion by attempting to talk about economic and communal life in terms of morality.

Chapter Two examines the Panic of 1797 and two of the most popular novels of the period: Susannah Rowson’s Charlotte Temple (1794), and Hannah Webster Foster’s The Coquette (1797). Reading these novels against a wave of religious sermons on forgiveness, I argue that by constructing novels replete with scenes of both economic and interpersonal forgiveness, Rowson and Foster provide literary responses to two of the central questions in the bankruptcy debate: to whom should the law apply, and under what conditions?

My third chapter explores the Panic of 1819 and traces efforts to blend the discourse of spiritual rebirth in the Second Great Awakening with the political discourse on economic rebirth through bankruptcy. As the Second Great Awakening gained momentum, James Fenimore Cooper was literally writing his way out of his own impending bankruptcy. In The Last of the Mohicans, I argue that Cooper uses the structure of the frontier romance itself to both reveal and to attack endless, fruitless, vengeful and ultimately murderous methods of “exchange” that have brought on both the Panic and the destruction of Cooper’s personal family fortune.

Chapter Four examines the Panic of 1837 and the Bankruptcy Act of 1841. The depression that precipitated the Act produced an entirely new genre of fiction called “panic fiction” including novels by Hannah Lee, Eliza Follen, and Frederick Jackson. These texts provide very explicit warnings against economic speculation, excessive materialism, and other risky economic practices, while at the same time advocating for the passage of a federal bankruptcy law that would bring both predictability and forgiveness into an arena that these authors, and the much of the public, viewed as corrupt and immoral.

Philosophy and Literature, 2009

Philosophy and Literature, 2009

Center for the Arts & Humanities Colloquium , 2007

This paper, which was written when I was a Fellow for the Center for the Humanities and Arts Coll... more This paper, which was written when I was a Fellow for the Center for the Humanities and Arts Colloquium at the University of Colorado at Boulder. The essay examines the relationship between the ongoing public debate over the need for a federal bankruptcy law as Nathaniel Hawthorne was struggling financially and in the years before and during his writing of "The Scarlet Letter." The argument I'm making here is that Hawthorne, while never formally a bankrupt under law, was very much informed by the public debates about debt, forgiveness, and compassion.