Conversation: A History of a Declining ArtYale University Press, 1 d’oct. 2008 - 368 pàgines Essayist Stephen Miller pursues a lifelong interest in conversation by taking an historical and philosophical view of the subject. He chronicles the art of conversation in Western civilization from its beginnings in ancient Greece to its apex in eighteenth-century Britain to its current endangered state in America. As Harry G. Frankfurt brought wide attention to the art of bullshit in his recent bestselling On Bullshit, so Miller now brings the art of conversation into the light, revealing why good conversation matters and why it is in decline. Miller explores the conversation about conversation among such great writers as Cicero, Montaigne, Swift, Defoe, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, and Virginia Woolf. He focuses on the world of British coffeehouses and clubs in “The Age of Conversation” and examines how this era ended. Turning his attention to the United States, the author traces a prolonged decline in the theory and practice of conversation from Benjamin Franklin through Hemingway to Dick Cheney. He cites our technology (iPods, cell phones, and video games) and our insistence on unguarded forthrightness as well as our fear of being judgmental as powerful forces that are likely to diminish the art of conversation. |
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Pàgina x
... novelist and essayist Re- becca West argues . " It is an illusion . There are intersecting monologues , that is all . " Writing about the novelist and play- wright Michael Frayn , a contemporary critic refers to " X Preface.
... novelist and essayist Re- becca West argues . " It is an illusion . There are intersecting monologues , that is all . " Writing about the novelist and play- wright Michael Frayn , a contemporary critic refers to " X Preface.
Pàgina 13
... play for the goodwill of influential people , the rule is that if it is designed to advance your career , it isn't conversation . " In The Age of Conversation ( 2005 ) , a study of conversation in seventeenth- and eighteenth - century ...
... play for the goodwill of influential people , the rule is that if it is designed to advance your career , it isn't conversation . " In The Age of Conversation ( 2005 ) , a study of conversation in seventeenth- and eighteenth - century ...
Pàgina 21
... Play [ gam- bling ] , Drink and Vicious Amours . " In Gulliver's Travels ( 1726 ) the Struldbruggs are immortal but their lives are miserable be- cause they cannot converse with most people , since they do not understand the language of ...
... Play [ gam- bling ] , Drink and Vicious Amours . " In Gulliver's Travels ( 1726 ) the Struldbruggs are immortal but their lives are miserable be- cause they cannot converse with most people , since they do not understand the language of ...
Pàgina 44
... play The Clouds is different from the Socrates we see in Symposium . He is not a conversationalist who uses " scrutiny . " He is an educator who undermines Athens's civic and family values . He turns a young man , Pheidippides , into ...
... play The Clouds is different from the Socrates we see in Symposium . He is not a conversationalist who uses " scrutiny . " He is an educator who undermines Athens's civic and family values . He turns a young man , Pheidippides , into ...
Pàgina 70
... play — or should play a central role in the formation of knowl- edge , but he does not clarify what this role is . He also seems to be saying that women belong only to the conversible world , yet he notes that " in a neighbouring Nation ...
... play — or should play a central role in the formation of knowl- edge , but he does not clarify what this role is . He also seems to be saying that women belong only to the conversible world , yet he notes that " in a neighbouring Nation ...
Continguts
29 | |
EighteenthCentury Britain | 79 |
A Conversational Triumph Lady | 119 |
Raillery to Reverie | 150 |
From Benjamin | 194 |
From | 242 |
NINE The Ways We Dont Converse Now | 264 |
TEN The End of Conversation? | 291 |
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