LEADER 04185nam 2200673 a 450 001 9910456564703321 005 20200520144314.0 010 $a0-8014-6247-9 024 7 $a10.7591/9780801462474 035 $a(CKB)2550000000036199 035 $a(OCoLC)732957134 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebrary10468043 035 $a(SSID)ssj0000542770 035 $a(PQKBManifestationID)11332690 035 $a(PQKBTitleCode)TC0000542770 035 $a(PQKBWorkID)10518193 035 $a(PQKB)10994081 035 $a(MiAaPQ)EBC3138164 035 $a(MdBmJHUP)muse28735 035 $a(DE-B1597)514976 035 $a(OCoLC)1091699952 035 $a(DE-B1597)9780801462474 035 $a(Au-PeEL)EBL3138164 035 $a(CaPaEBR)ebr10468043 035 $a(EXLCZ)992550000000036199 100 $a20080110d2008 uy 0 101 0 $aeng 135 $aurcn||||||||| 181 $ctxt 182 $cc 183 $acr 200 10$aWorldly acts and sentient things$b[electronic resource] $ethe persistence of agency from Stein to DeLillo /$fRobert Chodat 210 $aIthaca $cCornell University Press$d2008 215 $a1 online resource (268 p.) 300 $aBibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph 311 $a0-8014-4678-3 320 $aIncludes bibliographical references and index. 327 $aIntroduction : French cathedrals and other forms of life -- Sense, science, and slight contacts with other people's minds -- Embodiment and the inside -- The prose of persons -- Selves, sentences, and the styles of holism -- Embodiment and the outside -- The culture and its loaded words -- Conclusion : person and presence, stories and theories. 330 $aAnts, ghosts, cultures, thunderstorms, stock markets, robots, computers: this is just a partial list of the sentient things that have filled American literature over the last century. From modernism forward, writers have given life and voice to both the human and the nonhuman, and in the process addressed the motives, behaviors, and historical pressures that define lives-or things-both everyday and extraordinary.In Worldly Acts and Sentient Things Robert Chodat exposes a major shortcoming in recent accounts of twentieth-century discourse. What is often seen as the "death" of agency is better described as the displacement of agency onto new and varied entities. Writers as diverse as Gertrude Stein, Saul Bellow, Ralph Ellison, and Don DeLillo are preoccupied with a cluster of related questions. Which entities are capable of believing something, saying something, desiring, hoping, hating, or doing? Which things, in turn, do we treat as worthy of our care, respect, and worship?Drawing on a philosophical tradition exemplified by Ludwig Wittgenstein and Wilfrid Sellars, Chodat shows that the death of the Cartesian ego need not entail the elimination of purposeful action altogether. Agents do not dissolve or die away in modern thought and literature; they proliferate-some in human forms, some not. Chodat distinguishes two ideas of agency in particular. One locates purposes in embodied beings, "persons," the other in disembodied entities, "presences." Worldly Acts and Sentient Things is a an engaging blend of philosophy and literary theory for anyone interested in modern and contemporary literature, narrative studies, psychology, ethics, and cognitive science. 606 $aAmerican literature$y20th century$xHistory and criticism 606 $aAgent (Philosophy) in literature 606 $aConsciousness in literature 606 $aSubjectivity in literature 606 $aPhilosophy, Modern, in literature 608 $aElectronic books. 615 0$aAmerican literature$xHistory and criticism. 615 0$aAgent (Philosophy) in literature. 615 0$aConsciousness in literature. 615 0$aSubjectivity in literature. 615 0$aPhilosophy, Modern, in literature. 676 $a810.9/384 700 $aChodat$b Robert$f1970-$01049089 801 0$bMiAaPQ 801 1$bMiAaPQ 801 2$bMiAaPQ 906 $aBOOK 912 $a9910456564703321 996 $aWorldly acts and sentient things$92477792 997 $aUNINA