This thesis describes the origins and development of the concept of ‘attention’. An introductory chapter reviews the relevant extant literature; including an overview of modern theoretical framework provided Richards (1989; 1992) and Danziger (1997) and the research most comparable to the current project by Smith (1992), Kaufmann (2000) and Goldstein (2000); from which a set of foundational protocols is derived. It is argued that ‘attention’ as a reified concept of reflexive discourse does not emerge in Western literature until the 17th century and only after three distinct discursive traditions have waned in influence. Moreover, it is argued that ‘attention’, in any discursive form, is fundamentally an artefact of the physiomorphic assimilation of the practice of reading. The second chapter deals with the earliest characterisations of ‘attention’, from an intersubjective perspective, as a practice conducive to the living of a philosophically sound life. From these beginnings, two separate traditions emerge concurrently. On one hand, from a projective perspective, ‘attention’ is characterised as an aspect of another person’s subjectivity, to be influenced by certain means. This perspective, heavily associated with oratory, is dealt with in chapters four and six. On the other hand, from a subjective perspective, ‘attention’ is characterised as universal to all people and part of one’s subjective relationship with God and the world in general. This perspective, heavily associated with religion, is dealt with in chapters three, five and seven. Both of these perspectives are seen to decline in influence in the early sixteenth century, with the rise of humanistic and natural philosophical influences. These developments, the establishment of a conceptual approach to reflexive discourse and ‘attention’ are treated in chapters eight and nine, where a concept qua object of ‘attention’ is seen to emerge. The final chapter summarises and concludes with a rebuttal of possible objections to this thesis, some general and specific derivations, and implications of the current research for future scholarship. Throughout the thesis an attempt is made to appreciate each occurrence of the object term in its discursive context, and the author’s social, political, philosophical, religious and economic circumstances. Fundamental to the development of the concept of ‘attention’, is however, the author’s specific literary practices.

“Attention reveals a fresh, vital literary voice as it covers seemingly every imaginable topic relating to modern life.”—Entertainment Weekly “Joshua Cohen may be America’s greatest living writer.”—The Washington Post NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY WIRED One of Granta’s Best of Young American Novelists, Joshua Cohen arrives with his first collection of nonfiction, the culmination of two decades of writing and thought about life in the digital age. In essays, memoir, criticism, diary entries, and letters—many appearing here for the first time—Cohen covers the full depth and breadth of modern life: politics, literature, art, music, travel, the media, and psychology, and subjects as diverse as Google, Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders, fictional animals, Gustav Mahler, Aretha Franklin, John Zorn, landscape photography, fake Caravaggios, Wikipedia, Gertrude Stein, Edward Snowden, Jonathan Franzen, Olympic women’s fencing, Atlantic City casinos, the closing of the Ringling Bros. circus, and Azerbaijan. Throughout ATTENTION, Cohen directs his sharp gaze at home and abroad, calling upon his extraordinary erudition and unrivaled ability to draw connections between seemingly unlike things to show us how to live without fear in a world overflowing with information. In each piece, he projects a quality of thought that is uniquely his, and a voice as witty, profound, and distinct as any in American letters. At this crucial juncture in history, ATTENTION is a guide for the perplexed—a handbook for anyone hoping to bring the wisdom of the past into the culture of the future. Praise for ATTENTION “Dazzling in its scope . . . If curiosity is a writer’s greatest innate gift, Joshua Cohen may be America’s greatest living writer.”—The Washington Post “Cause for celebration and close study . . . [Cohen] will hunt after neglected shards of the past, minor histories, and charge them with an immediacy in the present. . . . He is experimenting with the essay form much more, and more cleverly, than any major American writer today.”—The Wall Street Journal “In Attention, Joshua Cohen makes an eclectic argument for how to improve our lives. . . . [He] tackles a surprising range of subjects to underline distraction’s role in our fraught predicament and to argue that paying attention could help us get out of it. . . . When it comes to making sense of our times with verve and imagination, few authors are more rewarding.”—Financial Times

Sir Frank Kermode, the British scholar, instructor, and author, was an inspired critic. Forms of Attention is based on a series of three lectures he gave on canon formation, or how we choose what art to value. The essay on Botticelli traces the artist’s sudden popularity in the nineteenth century for reasons that have more to do with poetry than painting. In the second essay, Kermode reads Hamlet from a very modern angle, offering a useful (and playful) perspective for a contemporary audience. The final essay is a defense of literary criticism as a process and conversation that, while often conflating knowledge with opinion, keeps us reading great art and working with—and for—literature.

Clustering around five major themes, and written by academics, researches and artists from Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, Taiwan and the United States, these essays explore how literary texts encode the faculty of attention, and how theories of reading recognize, or underestimate the arts and techniques of attention.

Decolonizing "Prehistory"critically examines and challenges the paradoxical role that modern historical-archaeological scholarship plays in adding legitimacy to, but also delegitimizing, contemporary colonialist practices. Using an interdisciplinary approach, this volume empowers Indigenous voices and offers a nuanced understanding of the American deep past.