Thoreau's Axe : : Distraction and Discipline in American Culture /

Thoreau's Axe : : Distraction and Discipline in American Culture / / Caleb Smith.

How nineteenth-century “disciplines of attention” anticipated the contemporary concern with mindfulness and being “spiritual but not religious”Today, we’re driven to distraction, our attention overwhelmed by the many demands upon it—most of which emanate from our beeping and blinking digital devices...

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Bibliographic Details
Superior document:Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter EBOOK PACKAGE COMPLETE 2023 English
VerfasserIn:
Smith, Caleb,
MitwirkendeR:
Apess, William,
Baird, Robert,
Buckminster, J. S.,
Child, Lydia Maria,
Clay Fish, Henry,
Clayton, Thomas,
Dana, James,
Dickinson, Emily,
Douglass, Frederick,
Eddy, A. D.,
Jacobs, Abraham,
James, William,
Kelley, William D.,
Lee, Jarena,
Mc-Ilvaine, J. H.,
Melville, Herman,
More, Hannah,
Morrison, Toni,
Palmer Peabody, Elizabeth,
Paul, Susan,
Plato, Ann,
Poe, Edgar Allan,
Reed, Austin,
Rouquette, Adrien,
Thoreau, Henry David,
Turner, Nat,
Watkins, William,
Whitman, Walt,
Place / Publishing House:Princeton, NJ : : Princeton University Press, , [2023]
©2023
Year of Publication:2023
Language:English
Online Access:
Physical Description:1 online resource (256 p.)
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Table of Contents:
  • Frontmatter
  • Contents
  • Introduction: Distraction and the Disciplines of Attention
  • Part I. From the devil to distraction
  • Introduction
  • 1 “Wandring or distraction”
  • 2 “Satan had hidden the very object from my mind”
  • 3 “Hundreds of thousands have their appetite so depraved”
  • 4 “My non-compliance would almost always produce much confusion”
  • 5 “Opium-like listlessness”
  • 6 “Morbid attention”
  • 7 “The shell of lethargy”
  • Part II. Reform
  • Introduction
  • 8 “A white man could, if he had paid as much attention”
  • 9 “The cultivation of attention as a moral duty”
  • 10 “The heart must be cultivated”
  • 11 “You might see him looking steadily at something”
  • 12 “Their nobler faculties lie all undeveloped”
  • 13 “Subdued and tender”
  • 14 “If he wanted to kill time”
  • Part III. Revival
  • Introduction
  • 15 “All attention to the last sermon”
  • 16 “The power of fixed and continuous attention”
  • 17 “The relations of business and religion”
  • 18 “My mind was powerfully wrought upon”
  • 19 “I began to direct my attention to this great object”
  • 20 “Hear me now, love your heart”
  • 21 “Read these leaves in the open air”
  • Part IV: Devotion
  • Introduction
  • 22 “Noble sentiments of devotion”
  • 23 “Savoir attendre”
  • 24 “The greatest exercise of mind”
  • 25 “A true sauntering of the eye”
  • 26 “If we do not guard the mind”
  • 27 “The valves of her attention”
  • 28 “Aroma finer than prayer”
  • Afterword
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • Index
  • A NOTE ON THE TYPE

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