Close Reading as Attentional Practice

• Explores the ways in which attention can be (and has been, across history) multifariously configured: not only as a solitary and focussed mode, but also, for example, as a somatic, communal, or dispersed mode
• Traces a long history of methods of close reading that provides a broader understanding, beyond the influential practitioners of the early twentieth century
• Examines how practices of reading can help us develop the tools to challenge habits of attention and to be more self-reflective about the attentional practices that condition our experience

Modernity of the digital age is beset by accusations that we are more distracted than ever, and that attention spans have become problematically compressed. It is an important moment, then, to explore the capacity of the tools of ‘close reading’ offered by our humanities disciplines to help develop and enable self-reflexivity around our attentional practices. These practices did not begin with the famous proponents of the early twentieth century but have been in formation since at least the Middle Ages. Exploring examples from the twelfth to the twentieth century, this book explores how methods of reading closely have been tools over the centuries for changing or challenging attentional habits and therefore changing the way the world is experienced.