Mind the Narratives: Towards a Cultural Narratology of Attention

Abstract

Taking its cue from current discourses on anxieties of (in)attention, and from the connections between attention, culture, and narrative, this essay introduces the conceptual and methodological framework for a cultural narratology of attention. As I argue, selective attention is not only a biological necessity: it also guides the production and reception of literary texts, influences the cultural narratives we live by, drives the development of (new) genres, and gives rise to what I call 'attention narratives'. Focusing on Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes stories, this essay shows how these 'attention narratives' connect with cultural anxieties of attention and distraction, driven mainly by technological advancements, while challenging readers' attentional capacities. They do so by creating moments of 'inattentional blindness', which help increase readers' awareness of the mechanisms of attention, while exposing cultural attention narratives that have shaped and continue to shape our perception. Given the central role of attention in cultures and narratives, there is a strong need for a cultural narratology of attention that bridges cognitive psychology, cultural studies, and literary studies. This essay offers the foundation for such an approach.

How to Do Things with Surfaces: The Politics and Poetics of Victorian Surfaces

“…These include Arthur Conan Doyle's vastly popular Sherlock Holmes stories, which display "a minute precision of description" and thereby exhibit "a supreme attentiveness to the surface of life" (Ousby 1976, 154). Composed as 'attention narratives' (Baumbach 2019), these narratives, in the limited timespan afforded by the strict literary form of the short story, quickly bind readers to the text and engage them in various surface readings, training them to become observant of surface structures by closely following Holmes' faculties of observation and his "quick, all-comprehensive glances" (Doyle 2014(Doyle [1892, 204). Many of these stories expose the 'invisible gorilla,' often accompanied by explicit comments that point to instances of inattentional blindness.…”