The Arts of Attention

Katalin Kallay

Description

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.

Sujets

• Harmattan Littérature
• Littérature

Informations

• Publié par: L'Harmattan
• Date de parution: 15 janvier 2017
• Nombre de lectures: 34
• EAN13: 9782140028052
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

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L’Harmattan Hongrie

COLLECTION KÁROLI
Collection dirigée par Enikő Sepsi

ISSN 2062-9850
Title
THE ARTS OF ATTENTION

EDITED BY
KATALIN G. KÁLLAY, MÁTYÁS BÁNHEGYI, ÁDÁM BOGÁR,
GÉZA KÁLLAY, JUDIT NAGY, BALÁZS SZIGETI














Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary
L’Harmattan Publishing • Éditions L’Harmattan

Budapest • Paris
2016
Copyright
Publishing Director: Enikő Sepsi, Ádám Gyenes, Xavier Pryen

Series editor: dr. Enikő Sepsi

Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary
Kálvin ter 9
H-1091 Budapest, Hungary
T: ([phone]

L’Harmattan Kiadó
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L’Harmattan France
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Editorial assistant: András Mikesy
English Language Editor: Donald E. Morse

© Authors, editors, 2016
© Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary, 2016
© L’Harmattan Publishing, 2016
© Editions L’Harmattan, 2016

EAN Epub : 978-2-336-78041-2

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Table of Contents
Cover
4th of cover
Title
Copyright
Table of Contents
KATALIN G. KÁLLAY INTRODUCTION
ATTENTION AND ONTOLOGY OF LITERATURE
HANS ULRICH GUMBRECHT HOW TO APPROACH “POETRY AS A MODE OF ATTENTION”?
ENIKŐ SEPSI ATTENTION AND CREATIVE IMAGINATION IN THE WORK OF SIMONE WEIL AND JANOS PILINSZKY
ISTVÁN LÁSZLÓ G. THE CONFESSION OF THE IMPERSONAL
KATE LARSON A POETICS OF ATTENTION
GYÖRGY FOGARASI TARGETS OF ATTENTION: AN IDIOM AND ITS RELATION TO TERRORISM AND TECHNOLOGY
TOBIAS HABERKORN TEXTUAL AND PARATEXTUAL VECTORS OF ATTENTION IN JAMES JOYCE’S ULYSSES
FICTION AND ATTENTION: NON-CONVENTIONAL EXPECTATIONS
BRETT BOURBON THE ATTENTIONS OF CARICATURE
JUDIT FRIEDRICH NOW YOU SEE HIM, NOW YOU DON’T: AUTHORIAL PRESENCE IN THE FICTION OF JULIAN BARNES
EWA RYCHTER SEDUCING ATTENTION: THE (EXTRA)ORDINARY IN SOME CONTEMPORARY BRITISH NOVELS
ROBERT SMID TECHNIQUES OF SURVEILLANCE IN MICHEL HOUELLEBECQ’S OEUVRE: LITERARY TEXTS AS EPISTEMIC THINGS OF OUR ORIGINAL DISORIENTATION
ÉVA ZSIZSMANN ATTENTION TO SPATIALITY IN ALICE MUNRO’S FICTION
ATTENTION, PHILOSOPHY, PSYCHOLOGY, AND READING LITERATURE
PÉTER DÁVIDHÁZI THE CHARGE OF FATAL INATTENTION: JEPHTHAH’S VOW AND HAMLET’S WARNING RECONSIDERED
GÉZA KÁLLAY “...BUT WITHOUT / THE ILLNESS SHOULD ATTEND IT”: ATTENTION, LEVINAS, AND SHAKESPEARE’S MACBETH
ÁKOS I. FARKAS WHO SHOULD WE FOLLOW? AUTHOR, TEXT AND READER IN SÁNDOR SZATHMÁRI’S IN VAIN
ÁGNES ZSÓFIA KOVÁCS FORMS OF ATTENTION IN HENRY JAMES’S WORKS ABOUT CHILDHOOD DEVELOPMENT
GABOR MEZEI ACROSS THE SEA OF SENSES: ATTENTION AND CORPOREALITY IN THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER
ARNDT NIEBISCH NERVOUS HERMENEUTICS. SCHLEIERMACHER’S ATTENTION DEFICIT
ANDREA TIMÁR READING MINDS: SYMPATHY, FICTION, ETHICS
NORA D. NAGY “MARKING THE EDGE OF ONE OF MANY CIRCLES”: ATTENDING TO ATTENTION IN WALLACE STEVENS’ POEM “THIRTEEN WAYS OF LOOKING AT A BLACKBIRD”
LAYERS OF ATTENTION IN AMERICAN FICTION
DONALD E. MORSE HOW TO TRAIN A MULE IN THE “HABITS OF ATTENTION”
MÁRTA PELLÉRDI “MY IDLE HUMOR HAS LED ME ASIDE”: FORMS OF ATTENTION IN WASHINGTON IRVING’S THE SKETCH BOOK
KATALIN G. KÁLLAY TRACING SIGHT ON THE OLD NATCHEZ TRACE: READING EUDORA WELTY’S “A STILL MOMENT”
KRISTINA KOČAN ŠALAMON HOW THE READER’S ATTENTION IS DRAWN IN JENNIFER EGAN’S A VISIT FROM THE GOON SQUAD
PÉTER TAMÁS “I WANT MY LEARNED READER TO PARTICIPATE IN THE SCENE”: THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ATTENTIVE READER IN LOLITA
FRANCIS X. ALTOMARE “OUR AWARENESS IS ALL THAT IS ALIVE AND MAYBE SACRED IN ANY Of US”: THE COGNITIVE POETICS OF ATTENTION IN KURT VONNEGUT’S BLUEBEARD
ÁDAM T. BOGÁR VICTIMS OF A SERIES OF ACCIDENTS: ATTENTION AND AUTHORITY IN THE SIRENS OF TITAN
MERIEM MENGOUCHI BOKONONISM, FISHERFOLKS, AND MADNESS AS BECOMINGS IN KURT VONNEGUT’S CAT’S CRADLE AND GALAPAGOS
MEDIATION AND ATTENTION BEYOND THE SCOPE OF LITERATURE
JOHN F. BROUWER GOD AND HIS WORD: PURITAN ATTENTION TO ATTENTION
JUDIT NAGY ATTENTION AND TRANSCULTURATION: K-POP IN CANADA
ÁGNES BERETZKY ATTENTION IN INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS - A CASE STUDY: BRITISH SPECIAL ATTENTION To HUNGARY WITH PARTICULAR REGARD TO THE INTERWAR PERIOD
JONATHAN BUTLER ONTOGENETIC YEARNING IN THE ECOLITERARY IMAGINATION: ATTENTION ATROPHY IN THE IPHONE AGE
ANNE-JULIA ZWIERLEIN “MEMORY, WHOSE STORES ARE THE FRUIT OF ATTENTION”: NARRATIVES OF INATTENTION IN VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN CONCERT ROOMS, CLASSROOMS AND LECTURE HALLS, 1860-1910
BALÁZS RAPCSÁK SWITCHING ATTENTION: TECHNOLOGIES OF AWARENESS IN BECKETT’S KRAPP’S LAST TAPE
SHORT BIOGRAPHY OF CONTRIBUTORS
OTHER TITLES IN THE SERIES
INTRODUCTION

KATALIN G. KÁLLAY

The volume which I now have the pleasure of introducing and which, I hope, the reader will find worthy of her attention, is the final accomplishment of the international conference "The Arts of Attention", held between 11-14 September, 2013 at Károli Gáspár University of the Reformed Church in Hungary. Out of the several presentations, thirty-three have been re-written into essays. While organizing the conference, we, from the start, did everything not to narrow down the range of topics the participants might find worthy of their interest and discussion. Apart from some truly general outlines - how literary texts encode the faculty of attention, and how theories of reading recognize, or underestimate the arts and techniques of attention - we were excitedly asking ourselves whether papers from diverse traditions and cultures, coming, as it turned out, from Algeria, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Germany, Hungary, Poland, Slovenia, Sweden, Taiwan and the United States, would ultimately gravitate towards some major themes. When it came to the putting of the Program together, we could already witness to the emergence of five major thematic clusters; it is these around which the thirty-three essays below have eventually been organized.
In the first section, attention is interpreted according to its role in the constitution of the very being of literature. Thus, the first part entitled "Attention and the Ontology of Literature" starts with the essay of Hans Ulrich Gumbrecht, our first keynote speaker at the Conference. Gumbrecht, based on his own work from the past twenty-five years and on the doctoral dissertation of Lucy Alford at Stanford University, comes up with the surprisingly original central claim that poetry and attention are "coextensive"; to describe and enjoy poetry is the evocation and cultivation of the very potential of the human psyche that is commonly called "attention". Gumbrecht studies charms, rhythm, prosody, temporality, spatiality and the "unconcealment of being" (Heidegger) to reinterpret poetry as a configuration of different modes of attention. Enikő Sepsi offers a parallel portrait of Simone Weil and one of the greatest Hungarian poets of the 20 th century, János Pilinszky. She shows how the philosophy of attention offers a unique description of the great moments of mystical life when this life gets a systematized description in Pilinszky’s poetry and in the account of the "attention without object" in Weil’s writings. Sepsi explores how motifs of the ceremonial, of God, time, the human body, and creative imagination contribute to a passive but vigilant attention in the texts of both authors. István László G. investigates the textual epistemology discernible in Emily Dickinson’s poems, which present themselves as vertical frameworks creating problematic moral dramas. If we attend to the music, to the said and the unsaid i.e. to the pulsation of the Dickinsonian text, temporality becomes a euphoric and phobic exposedness to integrity, and palpable loss creates the vertigo of impersonality as a unique moral stand. Kate Larson defines attention as "reaching out for", yet she means by "reaching out" not ‘grasping’ or ‘possession’ but she presents it in terms of openness and waiting. Like Sepsi, Larson finds that this interpretation of attention is markedly present in the philosophy of Simone Weil, and she extends her investigation to the writings of Iris Murdoch as well. She orients the reader towards an understanding of attention which is acknowledgement, a sort of unknowing, creativity and transcendence at the same time. György Fogarasi provides a rich survey of some of the most wide-spread definitions of attention in various philosophies (John Locke, William James, Walter Benjamin) and he contrasts these with detailed semantic analyses of how words expressing, or related to, attention are used in English, German, and Hungarian; he focuses on notions of tension, payment, and turning. Finally, drawing on the works of Alex Peter Schmid and Heidegger, he investigates the violent aspects of attention, including its role in terrorism and in the human desire to control. Tobias Habercorn provides a highly unus