Styles of Seriousness

Steven Connor is Director of Research in the Digital Futures Institute, King's College, London, and Grace 2 Professor of English Emeritus at the University of Cambridge. He is the author of Giving Way: Thoughts on Unappreciated Dispositions (Stanford, 2019) and twenty other books.

• 1. Seriously, Though2. Intent3. Importance4. Solemnity5. Zeal6. Rue7. MonitionConclusion

"Connor's is a game-changing study, delimiting new terrain at every witty and penetrating turn. There is nothing like this remarkable book, with its lambent and matured critical voice and its confident obliteration of disciplinary boundaries."—Garrett Stewart, author of The Metanarrative Hall of Mirrors "At once stunningly erudite and seriously entertaining, Steven Connor takes impish delight in revealing the way solemnity, zeal, and heavyweight intent weave across history into the fabric of philosophy, literature, and everyday life. With doom-mongering now the self-certified pastime of our current era of competitive piety, Styles of Seriousness is all the more eye-opening and deliciously irreverent."—David James, author of Discrepant Solace "The human species, said Emerson, is the only joker in nature. Steven Connor's essay on 'the holiday virtues' deliciously shows the precarious proximity of solemnity and hilarity. His anatomy of seriousness is both a philosophical meditation on the human estate and a political skirmish against the latest rounds of fatuousness. The book is at once puckish, exacting, and morally grounded."—John Durham Peters, author of The Marvelous Clouds "One can learn much from this eminent scholar as he mines literature to uncover styles of seriousness. Highly recommended."—H. Oberdiek, CHOICE