‘Attention and Drift’: A new vantage from which to look at literature and politics simultaneously

Prasanta Chakravarty’s Attention and Drift: Santayana and Cavell in the Present is an exuberant addition to what is already a versatile and impressive oeuvre. Chakravarty’s doctoral work was on the literature of the English Civil War of the 17th century. Since then, without losing his footing in the earlier centuries, he has engaged with themes unto the very present.

What unites his books is perhaps the ability to read literature and politics always simultaneously, each informing the other, each irreducible to the other. Thus, later works, including several edited ones, engage with figures like Machiavelli (in his historical period, as well as the shadow he casts today), as well as the complex thematics of what the media calls “populism”. Beyond this, he also edits a web journal, and is the author of four volumes of poetry.

Embracing risk and danger

The latest book on attention and drift is a study of two influential philosophers who are not generally paired together – George Santayana (1863-1952) and Stanley Cavell (1926-2018). These are American figures, and it is salutary that Indian literary scholars also engage with this Anglo-American tradition, instead of the French-German one which has dominated the curriculum over many decades.

Let us pay attention then to some of the chief...

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