Poetry in America: Representing Equality Through Accounts of Poetry in Alexis de Tocqueville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Stuart Mill

This dissertation explores the relationship between political and literary practices. Highlighting the connection between American literature and democratic theory that appears in the work of Alexis de Tocqueville, Ralph Waldo Emerson, and John Stuart Mill, my project considers how the fate of poetry in the new world joins poetical theory to aesthetic practice, and both to the practices of citizenship. For all three nineteenth-century theorists (and critics) of democracy, the representation of American citizens as readers and writers of poetry becomes a productive site for the dramatization of political practices and likewise, for navigating familiar tensions among democracy, egalitarian norms, and human flourishing. In developing this analysis I show how their respective accounts of poetry incorporate the idioms of their political projects, thus extending the promises and pitfalls of democratic equality to literature. I suggest that in so doing, they present the American democratic “experiment” as in part a literary project. Chapter One considers Tocqueville’s career-long appeals to poetry as part and parcel of his effort to diagnose and remediate the problematic relationship between private individuals and a tutelary state. Poetry, I argue, offers a version of his intermediary bodies writ literary. Chapter Two explores Emerson’s account of poetry as a means of cultivating and enacting admiration for the great while avoiding the worshipful, thus subordinate, postures such admiration risks. By capturing the beauty of ordinary and meager subjects, poetry becomes for Emerson a project of augmenting the aesthetic value of the lives of democratic citizens. Chapter Three examines Mill’s essays on poetry, which he presents as a mode of communication enabling authentic expression without the constraints imposed by democratic conditions. In incorporating the idioms of intimate exchange, Mill’s idealized notion of poetic utterance suggests that citizen-interlocutors might overcome the pernicious effects of democratic publicity through indirect address. This project expands on recent work concerning the diversity of writing genres pertinent to democratic theory, by recovering literary practices and relations as key elements in the political thought of Tocqueville, Emerson, and Mill. I argue that poetry orients each thinker to the relationship between democratic equality and human flourishing: overlooking how poetry articulates and nurtures this relationship, I suggest, occludes the role of literary writing in both contributing new visions of democratic equality and in giving those new visions worldly form.PHDPolitical ScienceUniversity of Michigan, Horace H. Rackham School of Graduate Studieshttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/143897/1/jshipper_1.pd

Heavy Construction Systems Specialists, Inc. (HCSS)

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KCI Technologies, Inc. - Engineering The Future, One Employee At A Time

To an outsider, KCI Technologies may appear to be a typical, run of the mill engineering firm.  However, once introduced, prospective clients soon understand why KCI was recently ranked 83rd on the Engineering News-Record's list of the top 500 engineering firms in the country, 7th on its list of Top 20 Telecommunications Firms, and 55th out of the Top 100 ‘Pure’ Designers. With a focus on providing the highest quality service through a commitment to innovation and employee development, KCI is clearly positioning itself for the future.  KCI Technologies is currently the largest employee-owned, multi-disciplined engineering firm in Maryland.   Providing consulting, engineering, and environmental construction management services, KCI had revenues of approximately $131 million in 2009, and serves clients in the Northeast, Southeast and Mid-Atlantic regions of the US.  The more than 900 employee owners of KCI operate out of offices in 12 states – Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Maryland, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia, as well as the District of Columbia.  KCI has undergone incredible changes over the last several decades.  From a basement dream, to a multi-million dollar employee owned organization, KCI is poised to face the future.  However, with an uncertain economy and reduced governmental and private-sector spending, will the loyalty and commitment of the employee-owners be enough for KCI to continue building the impressive set of awards and recognition for which the company has become accustomed

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SRC Holdings: Winning The Game While Sharing The Prize

SRC Holdings Corporation, formerly Springfield Remanufacturing Corp., is a well-known manufacturing enterprise comprised of numerous companies spread across 12 Business Units engaged in activities ranging from manufacturing to packaging to management consulting and training. However, their primary business expertise and core competency is remanufacturing -- the process of taking used transportation parts, for example, and returning them to their OEM (original equipment manufacturer) specifications. Headquartered in Springfield, Missouri, the SRC story is one of tremendous financial success, virtually from the beginning of the organization in 1983. At that time, a share of stock was worth 10¢; as of 2012, a single share is valued at about $361! But although the company is well-known for its financial record, it is safe to say that it is most famous for its founder and current CEO, Jack Stack, and his insistence on converting his company into an employee-owned firm very early on. The subsequent success of SRC and the role its employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) played in this success is legendary. Thus, it’s not surprising that both the SRC ESOP and Jack Stack play central roles in this case study