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This book explores the concept of 'quiet' - an aesthetic of narrative driven by reflective principles - and argues for the term's application to the study of contemporary American fiction. In doing so, it makes two critical interventions. Firstly, it maps the neglected history of quiet fictions, arguing that from Hester Prynne to Clarissa Dalloway, from Bartleby to William Stoner, the Western tradition is filled with quiet characters. Secondly, it asks what it means for a novel to be quiet and how we might read for quiet in an American literary tradition that critics so often describe as noisy. Examining recent works by Marilynne Robinson, Teju Cole and Ben Lerner, among others, the book argues that quiet can be a multi-faceted state of existence, one that is communicative and expressive in as many ways as noise but filled with potential for radical discourse by its marginalisation as a mode of expression. "What does it mean to describe a novel as 'quiet'? The quiet contemporary American novel defines the term as an aesthetic of narrative that is driven by reflective principles. While, at first appearance, 'quiet' seems a contradictory description of any literary form, because it risks suggesting that the novelist has nothing to say, this book argues that the quiet of the novel is better conceived as a mode of conversation that occurs at a reduced volume than as the failure to speak. The quiet contemporary American novel makes two critical interventions. Firstly, it maps the neglected history of quiet fictions and argues that from Hester Prynne to Clarissa Dalloway, from Bartleby to William Stoner, quiet characters fill the novel in the Western tradition. As a phrase, 'the quiet novel' also has a long and untraced history, dating back 150 years. Throughout its long history, many critics have used 'the quiet novel' as a phrase that dismisses and derides the work of writers whose novels seem disengaged from the 'noise' of their wider society. The quiet contemporary American novel finally takes up the long referred to idea of quiet fiction to ask what it means for a novel to be quiet and, through discussion of a diverse selection of contemporary writers including Marilynne Robinson, Teju Cole and Lynne Tillman, asks how we might read for quiet in an American literary tradition that critics so often describe as noisy." --Back cover.

American fiction --- History and criticism. --- USA. --- 9/11 event. --- American fiction. --- Marilynne Robinson. --- Western tradition. --- cognitive fiction. --- everyday experience. --- external feelings. --- human consciousness. --- internal feelings. --- noisy century. --- noisy narrative. --- quiet novel. --- quiet texts. --- temporality.

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The award of the Nobel Prize for literature in 1981 has seemingly assured Elias Canetti's place in literary history. But his significance as a cultural critic has not been adequately recognized. The present study redresses this situation in two ways: by mapping the counter-image of human existence, history, and society that informs Canetti's critique of the modern world and its sciences; and by opening up Canetti's hermetic oeuvre by tracing his cryptic and often concealed dialogue with major figures within the Western tradition such as Hobbes, Durkheim, and Freud and contemporaries such as Adorno, Arendt, and Elias. The authors ask how Canetti's alternative vision of man and society relates to important themes of twentieth-century social and civilizational thought even as it calls into question fundamental assumptions of the social and human sciences. In analyses of 'Auto da Fé, Crowds and Power,' and the aphorisms, the authors elucidate key aspects of Canetti's interrogation of human existence and human history across five thematic complexes: individual and social psychology, totalitarian politics, religion and politics, theories of society, and power and culture. They thus trace the movement of Canetti's thought from an apocalyptic sense of crisis to his search for cultural resources to set against the holocaust of European civilization. Johann P. Arnason teaches sociology at La Trobe University, Melbourne and David Roberts is Emeritus Professor of German at Monash University, Melbourne.

Canetti, Elias, --- Criticism and interpretation. --- Political and social views. --- Canetti, Elias --- Kanetti, Elias, --- Канети, Елиас, --- Kaneti, Elias, --- LITERARY CRITICISM / European / German. --- Civilization. --- Counter-Image. --- Crowds. --- Cultural Critic. --- Cultural Resources. --- Elias Canetti. --- European Civilization. --- History. --- Holocaust. --- Human Existence. --- Modern World. --- Power. --- Religion. --- Social Psychology. --- Society. --- Totalitarian Politics. --- Transformation. --- Twentieth-Century Thought. --- Western Tradition.

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Being Human examines the complex connections among conceptions of human nature, attitudes toward non-human nature, and ethics. Anna Peterson proposes an "ethical anthropology" that examines how ideas of nature and humanity are bound together in ways that shape the very foundations of cultures. Peterson discusses mainstream Western understandings of what it means to be human, as well as alternatives to these perspectives, and suggests that the construction of a compelling, coherent environmental ethics will revise our ideas not only about nature but also about what it means to be human.

Environmental ethics. --- Ethics. --- Deontology --- Ethics, Primitive --- Ethology --- Moral philosophy --- Morality --- Morals --- Philosophy, Moral --- Science, Moral --- Philosophy --- Values --- Environmental quality --- Human ecology --- Ethics --- Moral and ethical aspects --- Environmental ethics --- menselijke natuur --- nature humaine --- anthropologists. --- anthropology. --- cultural studies. --- culture. --- ecofeminism. --- ecology. --- environmental ethics. --- environmental. --- environmentalism. --- ethical anthropology. --- ethics. --- evolution. --- exceptionalism. --- feminist. --- human experience. --- human nature. --- humanity. --- morals. --- native american. --- natural world. --- nature. --- non human nature. --- non human. --- nonhuman animals. --- western tradition. --- western world.