Brox, Jane, 1956-

Silence : a social history of one of the least understood elements of our lives / Jane Brox. - 310 pages ; 22 cm.

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 nonastic world: a sistory 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 sorld: what remains -- The prison cell in our time -- Intervals of silence -- Coda -- In ruins.

Offers a history of silence as a powerful shaper of the human mind, specifically in Eastern State Penitentiary and the monastic world of Medieval Europe.

9780544702486 0544702484

2018017520


Silence--History.
Silence--Social aspects.
Monasticism and religious orders--History.


Pennsylvania--Prisons--History.
Europe--History--476-1492.

BJ1499 .S5 / B769 2019