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“Most people want to lead meaningful lives—but what does the word ‘meaning’ really mean? In What Do We Mean When We Talk About Meaning?, Steven Cassedy gives readers a fascinating history of ‘meaning,’ tracing how it transformed from an ordinary word in the Middle Ages into the existentially weighty concept it is today. This erudite book reminds us that meaning is a fluid and mysterious concept—but one that holds great power and promise.” Emily Esfahani Smith, author of The Power of Meaning
"A stimulating compound of wide-ranging intellectual history and striking linguistic erudition providing many new insights into its important subject." Jerrold Seigel, Professor Emeritus, New York University
“How did the words ‘meaning’ and ‘life’ become connected? Steven Cassedy’s remarkable intellectual history provides the first comprehensive answer, by tracing the connection from the ancient world, to German Romanticism, to the Catholic Church’s adoption of the language of ‘meaning’ in the 1960s. It’s quite a story, very irreverently told, and once you know it you might not want a meaningful life anymore.” James Tartaglia, Professor of Metaphysical Philosophy, Keele University
CONNECTED: HOW TRAINS, GENES, PINEAPPLES, PIANO KEYS, AND A FEW DISASTERS TRANSFORMED AMERICANS AT THE DAWN OF THE TWENTIETH CENTURY
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014)
Awarded a Gold Medal in U.S. History:
Independent Publisher Book Awards (2014)
" ... so well researched and argued is Cassedy’s book, and such interesting new evidence does it provide, that it constitutes a seminal study in its own right."
David Keymer, Library Journal
"Cassedy regales us throughout with unexpected insights. ... Indeed, this book is best read as a sprightly survey of social and technological transformation set in an era that makes our current high-tech age seem relatively dull. America probably changed more between 1880 and 1920 than at any other time in the nation’s history. Cassedy does a fine job of showing us how and why."
Hiawatha Bray, Boston Globe
"Lest we put too much stock in bromides about the recent flatness of the world, this history contextualizes the developments that created a vastly more interconnected social world more than a century ago."
Brian C. Keegan, Science
" ... engaging look at how deeply the United States was changed over the course of a couple of decades in science, medicine, technology and art, and more significantly, in how it viewed itself. ... It all makes today’s social media ‘revolution’ pretty tame by comparison."
John Wilkens, San Diego Union-Tribune
DOSTOEVSKY'S RELIGION
(Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005)
BUILDING THE FUTURE: JEWISH IMMIGRANT INTELLECTUALS AND THE MAKING OF TSUKUNFT, translated with historical introduction
(New York: Holmes and Meier, 1999)
TO THE OTHER SHORE: THE RUSSIAN JEWISH INTELLECTUALS WHO CAME TO AMERICA
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1997)
FLIGHT FROM EDEN: THE ORIGINS OF MODERN LITERARY CRITICISM AND THEORY
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1990)
SELECTED ESSAYS OF ANDREY BELY, translated with critical introduction
(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985)
“What is the Meaning of Meaning in Paul Tillich’s Theology?”, Harvard Theological Review, 111:3 (2018), 307-332
“Beethoven the Romantic: How E. T. A. Hoffmann Got It Right,” Journal of the History of Ideas, 71, no. 1 (January 2010): 1-37.
“A History of the Concept of the Stimulus and the Role it Played in the Neurosciences,” Journal of the History of the Neurosciences, 17(4) (2008): 405-32.
“Walter Rauschenbusch, the Social Gospel Movement, and How Julius Wellhausen Unwittingly Helped Create American Progressivism in the Twentieth Century,” in Shawna Dolansky, ed., Sacred History, Sacred Literature: Essays on Ancient Israel, the Bible, and Religion in Honor of R. E. Friedman (Winona Lake, IN: Eisenbrauns, 2008), pp. 315-23.
“The Progressive Yiddish Press in America Looks at Dostoevsky at the Turn of the Twentieth Century,” Dostoevsky Studies, fall 2005.
“A Bintel brief: The Russian Émigré Intellectual Meets the American Mass Media.” East European Jewish Affairs, 34 (2004): 104-120.
“Globalization and the Modern Conception of Human Rights,” Fernando López-Alves and Diane E. Johnson, eds., Globalization and Uncertainty in Latin America (New York: Palgrave, 2007), pp. 179-204.
“A Missing Page in the History of Marxism: How Marxist Literary Criticism Took Shape in the Yiddish Press in the United States,” Rethinking Marxism, 11, no. 3 (1999): 56-71.
"Radical Literary Criticism in Yiddish: The Example of Di Tsukunft, 1892-1918," YIVO Annual of Jewish Social Science, vol. 23 (Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 1996), pp. 181-208.
"Chernyshevskii Goes West: How Jewish Immigration Helped Bring Russian Radicalism to America," Russian History, 21, No. 1 (1994): 1-21.
"The Epilogue of Crime and Punishment: Tragedy and Resurrection," Dostoevsky Studies, 3 (1982): 171-90.