Title

The Edward Bliss Emerson Journal Project: Qualitative Research by a Non-Hierarchical Team

Authors

José G. Rigau-PérezFollow
Silvia E. Rabionet, Nova Southeastern University College of PharmacyFollow
Annette B. Ramírez de Arellano
Wilfredo A. Géigel
Alma Simounet
Raúl Mayo-Santana

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Description

Edward Bliss Emerson (1805-1834), a younger brother of the renowned essayist and poet Ralph Waldo Emerson, lived in the Caribbean for the final three years of his life. His journal and letters are a rich manuscript source for the history of the Danish Virgin Islands (1831-1832) and Puerto Rico (1831-1834). The texts also reflect the contemporary political and cultural situation in the United States, and Edward's search for health, economic independence, intellectual stimulation and metaphysical fulfillment.

These writings ignited an intellectual passion in José G. Rigau-Pérez, a physician, medical epidemiologist, and historian in Puerto Rico. Furthering access to these unique resources he produced a digital version of the journal from the Ralph Waldo Emerson Memorial Association deposit at the Houghton Library (Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts) and the letters kept at Houghton Library, the Emerson Family Papers at Massachusetts Historical Society (Boston), and other locations. (See http://edicionesdigitales.info/biblioteca/Emerson.pdf for the full online text of the journal and letters).

Dr. José G. Rigau-Pérez also organized a community of scholars who share a sense a common purpose even in the absence of propinquity. The group includes Silvia E. Rabionet, an associate professor in health education at the University of Puerto Rico School of Public Health and Nova Southeastern University College of Pharmacy; Annette B. Ramírez de Arellano, a planner and policy analyst whose work focuses on public health; Wilfredo A. Géigel, a trial lawyer by profession, an independent scholar, member and past president of the Society of Virgin Islands Historians, and Adjunct Professor of History at the University of the Virgin Islands, St. Croix Campus; Raúl Mayo-Santana, an Ad-Honorem Professor at the School of Medicine, University of Puerto Rico; and Alma Simounet, a Professor of English and Linguistics at the University of Puerto Rico. They explore the Emerson journal and letters from multidisciplinary perspectives to bring forth historical, medical, legal, sociological, and geographical insights of the people, times, and places of the mid 1830s in the Caribbean and United States.

The work of this talented team resulted in a series of essays we at The Qualitative Report (TQR) are pleased to present as our first book -The Edward Bliss Emerson Journal Project: Qualitative Research by a Non-Hierarchical Team! Under the editorial guidance of TQR Editor Dan Wulff, Dr. Rigau-Pérez and the other members of the team have produced these unique accounts as a transdisciplinary examination of Emerson's world.

Publication Date

4-2014

Publisher

The Qualitative Report

City

Fort Lauderdale

Keywords

Edward Bliss Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Caribbean, Puerto Rico, Danish Virgin Islands

Disciplines

Community-Based Learning | Community-Based Research | Geography | History | Law | Medicine and Health Sciences | Nature and Society Relations | Quantitative, Qualitative, Comparative, and Historical Methodologies | Social and Behavioral Sciences | Sociology

NSUWorks Citation

Rigau-Pérez, José G.; Rabionet, Silvia E.; Ramírez de Arellano, Annette B.; Géigel, Wilfredo A.; Simounet, Alma; and Mayo-Santana, Raúl, "The Edward Bliss Emerson Journal Project: Qualitative Research by a Non-Hierarchical Team" (2014). The Qualitative Report Books. 2.
https://nsuworks.nova.edu/tqr_books/2