Worldly acts and sentient things; the persistence of agency from Stein to DeLillo

Reference & Research Book News, Nov, 2008

Worldly acts and sentient things; the persistence of agency from Stein to DeLillo.

Chodat, Robert.

Cornell U. Press

2008

254 pages

$39.95

Hardcover

PS288

Western culture is displaying considerable uncertainty about what kinds of things should be treated as sentient and sapient, as responsible being, contends Chodat (English, Boston U.). Blending philosophy and literary theory--for scholars of modern and contemporary literature, narrative studies, psychology, ethics, and cognitive science--this study begins with an introductory chapter called "French Cathedrals and Other Forms of Life" and the lead sentences: "How do you seduce a heap of chiseled stones? One person wh tried, at least for a while, was Henry Adams." The discussion continues in three chapters on "agents within," addressing contacts with other people's minds, embodiment and the inside, "the prose of persons"; and three on "agents without." and the resolution is to regard more and more things as at least potential doings and thinkers. He discusses in turn agents within and agents without.

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