Silence : a social history of one of the least understood elements of our lives / Jane Brox

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Part I. Philadelphia's Eastern State Penitentiary, 1829: Experiment in Silence -- Man of Sorrows -- Benjamin Rush's Vision -- Good by Discipline -- John Haviland's Star of Solitudes -- Part II. The Monastic World: A History of Silence -- In Proportion -- Speech and Silence -- Thomas Merton: Silence and the World -- Measures of Time -- The Voices of the Pages -- The Great Silence -- Part III. Philadelphia: Darkening the Dark -- Night in Stone -- "I get up and hammer my leather." -- Punishment Within Punishment -- "So that it may uplift ..." -- Time Again -- Part IV. The Silence of Women -- Silencing Silence -- "Or perhaps women ..." -- Monastic Women: More Shadow Than Light -- Part V. The Ends of Silence -- Thomas Merton: Questioning Silence -- The Monastic World: What Remains -- The Prison Cell in Our Time -- Intervals of Silence -- Coda -- In Ruins.

Through her evocative intertwined histories of the penitentiary and the monastery, Jane Brox illuminates the many ways silence is far more complex than any absolute; how it has influenced ideas of the self, soul, and society. Brox traces its place as a transformative power in the monastic world from Medieval Europe to the very public life of twentieth century monk Thomas Merton, whose love for silence deepened even as he faced his obligation to speak outagainst war. This fascinating history of ideas also explores the influence the monastic cell had on one of society's darkest experiments in silence: Eastern State Penitentiary. Conceived of by one of the Founding Fathers and built on the outskirts of Philadelphia, the penitentiary's early promulgators imagined redemption in imposed isolation, but they badly misapprehended silence's dangers. Finally, Brox's rich exploration of silence's complex and competing meanings leads us to imagine how we might navigate our own relationship with silence today, for the transformation it has always promised, in our own lives.

English