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Thoroughly informed by engagement with 17th- and 18th-century philosophies of mind, the book is also impressive for its periodic forays into modern cognitive science... Distraction is an important addition to the literature on 18th-century fiction and cognition. Highly recommended.
It reads... as a manifesto for the possibility of a kind of research in which disciplines are combined not in the sense of serving each other, or borrowing from each other, but in true synergy. From all the aspects of Phillips’s book that are commendable – and there are many from its originality and clarity of argumentation through to its powers of interpretation – this is the most significant. Literature and science are on an equal footing here and the fruits of their combination are remarkable.
Among its many strengths, Distraction’s greatest contribution is its elegant articulation of Phillips’s interdisciplinary methodology, which interlinks literary historicism and cognitive science to foster "productive dissonance between fi elds" (222).
A stellar contribution to cognitive historicist studies, Distraction is engagingly written, lucidly argued, and highly original. This book will be read, reviewed, and talked about.
The problem of managing the distracted reader did not arise in the age of digital media. Eighteenth-century writers experimented with distraction to hold their readers’ attention and, in the process of doing so, advanced theories of concentration in eighteenth-century psychology. Weaving together literary criticism, history, and cognitive neuroscience (replete with the trailblazing fMRI studies of novel reading), Phillips tells a brilliant and witty story of attention and distraction. This is cognitive historicism at its best, a touchstone for interdisciplinary inquiry.
This book has it all: a brilliant and thorough tour of eighteenth-century literary history, an equally brilliant and thorough tour of recent cognitive neuroscience, and a serious philosophical reflection on distraction and attention. The book is written for its readers in a widely accessible and enjoyable style. So wide-ranging is it in scope and ambition that it can lay claim to being a late Enlightenment manifesto for bringing together our humanistic and scientific ways of knowing.
In her remarkable study, Phillips provides a new set of lenses for the reading of eighteenth-century literature. Her scrutiny of forms of attention (and its deficits) that literary texts debated, tested, and enacted will change the way we understand the formal strategies and fictive scenarios involved in representing both the scatter-brained and the mono-maniacally focused denizens of eighteenth-century fictional worlds. Well informed but not overawed by the debates and discoveries of contemporary neuroscience, and conversant with the narratology on representation of minds, Phillips offers a contextual study of the first order.
A superb example of cognitive historicism, Phillips' book makes modern cognitive science attend to its own intellectual history. Her literary study focuses our attention on the eighteenth century and makes a strong case for the period as the climax in an ongoing story about distraction, wandering minds, and scattered attention. After fresh, insightful readings of Samuel Johnson, Eliza Haywood, Laurence Sterne, and William Godwin, Phillips treats her reader to a scientific stunt, delivering Jane Austen by way of magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In truth, her exposition is throughout punctuated with references to neuroanatomy and neuroimaging in order to establish the untold ways in which literature informs current thinking about the brain.
About
Book Details
Publication Date
Status
Available
Trim Size
6
x 9
Pages
304
ISBN
9781421420127
Illustration Description
2 color photos, 17 halftones
Table of Contents
Preface
Introduction. The Literary History of Distraction
The Unifocal and the Multifocal
The Rise of the Distracted Character
Attention, Distraction, and Enlightenment Philosophy of Mind
A Swiftly
Preface
Introduction. The Literary History of Distraction
The Unifocal and the Multifocal
The Rise of the Distracted Character
Attention, Distraction, and Enlightenment Philosophy of Mind
A Swiftly Tilting Madness
Categorizing Distraction
1. Mind Wandering: Forms of Distraction in the Eighteenth-Century Essay
Distraction and the Eighteenth-Century Essay
The Rhetoric of Attention: Appealing to Pathos and Brevitas
The Essay as a Tool of Focus
Training Attention to Attention
Strengthening Focus: Repetition and Dramatic Irony
Economies of Attention
The History of Attention Span
2. Lapses of Concentration: Distracted Vigilance and the Female Mind
Environment and Mind: Urban Diversion and the Distracted Brain
The Problem of a Soft Female Mind
Sex, Environment, and the Multifocal Coquette
The Challenges of Situational Awareness
Philosophizing Multiplicity: Cognitive Bottlenecks and Sorting Gloves
Strained Omniscience and the Distracted Heroine
The Crowded Syntax of Sexual Inattention
"Might as Well Be Passed Over as Read:" Indulging the Diverted Reader
3. Scattered Attention: Distraction and the Rhythm of Cognitive Overload
Rhythms of Narrative, Rhythms of Mind
The Scattered Rhythms of Cognitive Overload
Susannah and the Vexed Situation of Madam Reader
The Anatomy of Parallel Processing
The Sermon: Asynchronous Rhythms of Prose
Hobbyhorses and the Individual Beat of Interest
Irregular Distraction: The Tempo of Cognitive Overload
Rhythms of the Brain: Creativity and the Timing of Distraction
4. Fixated Attention: The Gothic Pathology of Single-Minded Focus
Microscope and Mind
Scientific Metaphors and the Madness of Attention
The Politics and Poetics of Fixation
Involuntary Attention: A Multifocal Selective Blindness
Sympathy and the Benefits of Distraction
Rewriting Suspense: Interruption and the Gothic Sublime
Fixation and the Science of Obsession
5. Divided Attention: Characterization and Cognitive Richness in Jane Austen
The Power of Multitasking in Pride and Prejudice
The Singular Importance of Inattentive Characters
Mr. Hurst: The Limited Capacity of the Undivided Mind
Mrs. Jenkinson: Narrow Bandwidth and the Creation of Depth
Lydia and Miss Bingley: Caricaturing Cognitive Vacancy
The Dangers of Too Much Attention
Distraction as Liveliness of Mind
Mary Bennet: Hyperfocus and Cognitive Immobility
Lady Catherine de Bourgh: The Problem of Excess Vigilance
Elizabeth Bennet: The Benefits of Diversion
Characterizing Reading: Maps of Distraction and Interest
Coda: History of Mind and Literary Neuroscience
Interdisciplinarity: From Theory to Practice
Literary Attention: An fMRI Study of Reading Jane Austen
The Value of Literary History
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Resources
