| Contemporary Fictions of Attention: Reading and Distraction in the Twenty-First Century Contributor(s): Bennett, Alice (Author) |
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ISBN: 147428261X ISBN-13: 9781474282611 Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic OUR PRICE: $158.40 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: August 2018 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Literary Criticism | Comparative Literature |
| Dewey: 809.305 |
| LCCN: 2018002422 |
| Physical Information: 0.56" H x 6.14" W x 9.21" (1.08 lbs) 224 pages |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: With the supposed shortening of our attention spans, what future is there for fiction in the age of the internet? Contemporary Fictions of Attention rejects this discourse of distraction-crisis which suggests that the future of reading is in peril, and instead finds that contemporary writers construct 'fictions of attention' that find some value in states or moments of inattention. Through discussion of work by a diverse selection of writers, including Joshua Cohen, Ben Lerner, Tom McCarthy, Ali Smith, Zadie Smith, and David Foster Wallace, this book identifies how fiction prompts readers to become peripherally aware of their own attention. Contemporary Fictions of Attention locates a common interest in attention within 21st-century fiction and connects this interest to a series of debates surrounding ethics, temporality, the everyday, boredom, work, and self-discipline in contemporary culture. |
Contributor Bio(s): Bennett, Alice: - Alice Bennett is senior lecturer in English Literature at Liverpool Hope University, UK. She has published on contemporary fiction in Critique, the Oxford Literary Review, and Textual Practice and is the author of Afterlife and Narrative in Contemporary Fiction (2012). |