The Antechamber : Toward a History of Waiting

Helmut Puff

ISBN 10: 1503637026 / ISBN 13: 9781503637023

Edité par Stanford University Press Okt 2023, 2023

A propos de cet article

Neuware - 'Helmut Puff invites readers to visit societies and spaces of the past through the lens of a particular temporal modality: waiting. From literature, memoirs, manuals, chronicles, visuals, and other documents, Puff presents a history of waiting anchored in antechambers - interior rooms designated and designed for people to linger. In early modern continental Western Europe, antechambers became standard in the residences of the elites. As a time-space infrastructure these rooms shaped encounters between unequals. By imposing spatial distance and temporal delays, antechambers constituted authority, rank, and power. Puff explores both the logic and the experience of waiting in such formative spaces, showing that time divides as much as it unites, and that far from what people have said about early moderns, they approached living in time with apprehensiveness. Unlike how contemporary society primarily views the temporal dimension, to early modern Europeans time was not an objective force external to the self but something that was tied to acting in time. Divided only by walls and doors, waiters sought out occasions to improve their lot. At other times, they disrupted the scripts accorded them. Situated at the intersection of history, literature, and the history of art and architecture, this wide-ranging study demonstrates that waiting has a history that has much to tell us about social and power relations in the past and present'--.

N° de réf. du vendeur 9781503637023

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: The Antechamber : Toward a History of Waiting
• Éditeur: Stanford University Press Okt 2023
• Date de parution: 2023
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 1503637026
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9781503637023
• Reliure: Taschenbuch
• État de l'article: Neu
• Dimensions: 225 L x 149 H x 16 P (en millimètres) 225 millimètres de largeur par 149 millimètres de hauteur par 16 millimètres de profondeur
• Poids: 390 grammes

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Helmut Puff invites readers to visit societies and spaces of the past through the lens of a particular temporal modality: waiting. From literature, memoirs, manuals, chronicles, visuals, and other documents, Puff presents a history of waiting anchored in antechambers-interior rooms designated and designed for people to linger.

In early modern continental Western Europe, antechambers became standard in the residences of the elites. As a time-space infrastructure these rooms shaped encounters between unequals. By imposing spatial distance and temporal delays, antechambers constituted authority, rank, and power. Puff explores both the logic and the experience of waiting in such formative spaces, showing that time divides as much as it unites, and that far from what people have said about early moderns, they approached living in time with apprehensiveness. Unlike how contemporary society primarily views the temporal dimension, to early modern Europeans time was not an objective force external to the self but something that was tied to acting in time. Divided only by walls and doors, waiters sought out occasions to improve their lot. At other times, they disrupted the scripts accorded them. Situated at the intersection of history, literature, and the history of art and architecture, this wide-ranging study demonstrates that waiting has a history that has much to tell us about social and power relations in the past and present.

À propos de l'auteur

Helmut Puff is Elizabeth L. Eisenstein Collegiate Professor of History and Germanic Languages at the University of Michigan. His other books include Sodomy in Reformation Germany and Switzerland (2003) as well as Miniature Monuments: Modeling German History (2014).