Scenes of Attention

D. Graham Burnett is a professor of history and the history of science at Princeton University, where he is affiliated with the IHUM interdisciplinary doctoral program. His scholarly books on cartography, empire, optics, and the oceans have examined the changing understanding of nature from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. Burnett is associated with the research collective ESTAR(SER) and the activist coalition “The Friends of Attention,” with whom he coauthored Twelve Theses on Attention (2022).Justin E. H. Smith is professor of the history and philosophy of science at the Université Paris Cité and a member of the SPHERE Laboratory for Research in the History of Science. He is the author of five books, most recently The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is: A History, a Philosophy, a Warning (2022), and a frequent contributor to a number of popular publications. In 2015 a main-belt asteroid, 4.5 kilometers in diameter, was named after him: 13585 Justinsmith (1993 TC20).

• Introduction, by D. Graham Burnett and Justin E. H. SmithPart I. Histories of Attention1. The Discovery of Attention, by Richard J. Spiegel2. Attention and Boredom in Early American Psychology, by Henry M. Cowles3. Attending to the Birds: Ornithologists and Listening, by Alexandra Hui4. Attention, Art, and Psychotherapeutics, by Julian ChehirianPart II. Philosophies of Attention5. Attention: Mechanism and Virtue, by Carlos Montemayor6. Attention, Technology, and Creativity, by Carolyn Dicey Jennings and Shadab Tabatabaeian7. Attention to Absence and Imagination, by Jonardon Ganeri8. Dispatch from the Jhāna Wars: Attention Practice in Online Buddhism, by John TreschPart III. Attention, Technology, Culture9. Wearable Attention: Course-Correction for Wandering Minds, by Natasha Dow Schüll10. Attentional ‘Ownership’: Online Education and Self-Possession, by Brian Yuan11. Attention is All You Need: Humans and Computers in the Time of Neural NetworksNick Seaver12. Medium Focus, by Joanna FiducciaPart IV. Endgame(s)13. Attention Fast, Attention Slow: Obsession, Compulsion, Holding Close, by Yael Geller14. Units of Intensive Care: Poetic Attention and the Precarious Body, by Lucy AlfordBibliographyList of ContributorsIndex

This book brings together beautifully written and diverse perspectives on attention: as phenomenon, scholarly practice, memoir, meditation, metahistory, and art. Required reading in an era of exponential financialization and attention deficit disorder at civilizational scale.