Attention and distraction in modern German literature, thought, and culture / Carolin Duttlinger.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Duttlinger, Carolin, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

German literature--20th century--History and criticism.

German literature.

Politics and literature--Great Britain--History--20th century.

Politics and literature.

Germany--Social conditions--20th century.

Germany.

Attention in literature.

Distraction (Psychology).

Social psychology--Germany--History.

Social psychology.

Social conditions.

Genre:

Criticism, interpretation, etc.

History.

Physical Description:

xvii, 437 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm

Edition:

First edition.

Place of Publication:

Oxford ; New York : Oxford University Press, 2022.

Summary:

"Attention is fundamental to how we experience reality, and yet this notion has been understood and practised in very different ways across history. This interdisciplinary study explores the dynamic relationship between attention and its supposed opposite, distraction, as it unfolds from the eighteenth century to the present day. Its primary focus is on twentieth-century Germany and Austria, where matters of (in)attention gained a unique urgency during a period of social change and political crisis. 00Building on Enlightenment practices of self-observation, nineteenth-century Germany was the birthplace of experimental psychology, a discipline which sought to measure and potentially enhance human attention. This approach was also adopted outside the psychological laboratory-for instance in the First World War, when psychological testing was used to select soldiers for particular strategic positions. After the war these techniques filtered through into everyday life. Weimar Germany was unique in the western world in rolling out the methods of 'psychotechnics' across civilian society-in fields such as work and education, advertising and mass entertainment. This state-sponsored programme aimed to reshape people's minds and behaviour in order to build a more efficient, streamlined society.00But as this study shows, this initiative also had profound repercussions in the fields of thought, literature, and culture. New readings of leading writers and intellectuals of the period-Kafka, Musil, Kracauer, Benjamin, and Adorno-are interspersed with broader cultural-historical chapters dedicated to the history of psychology and psychiatry, to Weimar self-help literature, portrait photography, and musical culture."--Provided by publisher.

Contents:

Virtue, reflex, pathology : attention from the Enlightenment to the late nineteenth century

Modernity : fragmentation and resistance

Franz Kafka : diversion, vigilance, paranoia

Psychotechnics : training the mind

Threshold states : Robert Musil

The art of concentration : Weimar self-help literature

Stillness : Weimar photography

Presence of mind : Walter Benjamin

Musical listening between immersion and detachment

Spellbound : Theodor W. Adorno on music and style

Celan, Sebald, Hoppe : networks of attention.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [405]-428) and index.

Other Format:

: Online version: Duttlinger, Carolin, 1976- Attention and distraction in modern German literature, thought, and culture.

ISBN:

9780192856302

0192856308

OCLC:

1294455034