Happening Now: Julia Mueller, Social Thought, "Ardent Attention (Gilbert White and J.A. Baker)”
Her dissertation focuses on lyric poetry and natural history writing that shares a response to the natural world, and in the interaction between the act of writing and the act of giving attention.
All observers are concerned with fidelity to and betrayal of the living objects they observe, moments that emerge from the moment of attention and come out in the act of writing.
Victoria Saramago acting as respondent: Focus on the form of distance these authors bring to their observation - they try to maintain distance from their observed animals, but at the same time have some differences in how this works.
Gilbert White focuses on living animals, focused attention on seeing how animals live, through their own eyes. Baker focuses on "the offence that other animals can take to human presence".
The chapter traces a geneaology of modes of observing and writing in literature in the British context. The consideration of form also sheds light on the ways that the observations of these animals can be enhanced by the fragmentary nature of some genres of writing (journals).
How do we balance individual author choice, historical framework, and style? What is our takeaway about what these authors tell us about the natural world (and the observation thereof)?
How do attention and immediacy play together in nature writing?
what do we do with *our* attention as readers?
wonderful meditation by Victoria on how the word Peregrin in many romance languages means "pilgrim," enhancing the relatioship between the sacred and the natural in Baker's observations.
Mueller: The most important figure in this triad for me of the natural world, the writer, and the reader is the first one. I want to see how these observers help us to relate not only to their writing, but also to the natural world anew.
The proejct capitalizes on the way that attention can mean turning outward, though it can also mean turning inward. Attention has the same root as "to wait"
Thomaz: Mourning towards the loss of animals is an interesting consideration for this piece -- not a mourning towards just the loss of genetic material and species diversity, but also towards the ways of being that other animals have.
Julia: Both authors seem to abstract, to use the individual in front of them as a representative of the species
@natterjee : How do you think about the individual and the discipline in the formation of attention? Can attention be trained? How much is one's attention trained by discipline?
The conclusion brings in Frankenstein's monster, and his love for the family in the cottage begot through observation - another example of "ardent" attention.
