Essays on boredom and modernity / / edited by Barbara Dalle Pezze and Carlo Salzani.

• Superior document: Critical studies ; v. 31
• Author: EbscoHost (Servicio en línea)
• TeilnehmendeR: Dalle Pezze, Barbara, 1970-; Salzani, Carlo, 1972-; EbscoHost (Servicio en línea)
• Place / Publishing House: Amsterdam ;, New York, NY : : Rodopi,, 2009.
• Year of Publication: 2009
• Language: English
• Series: Critical Studies 31.
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (225 pages).
• Notes: Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

The past thirty years saw a growing academic interest in the phenomenon of boredom. If initially the analyses were mostly a-historical, now the historicity of boredom is widely recognised, though often it is taken as evidence of its permanence as a constant “quality” of the human condition, expression of a metaphysical malady inherent to the fact of being human. New trends in the literature focus on the peculiar relationship between boredom and modernity and attempt to embrace the new social, cultural and political factors which provoked the epochal change of modernity and relate them to a change in the parameters of human experience and the crisis of subjectivity. The very changes that characterise modernity are the same that led to the “democratisation” of boredom: modernity and boredom are shown to be inextricably connected and inseparable. This volume aims at contributing to the growing body of literature on boredom with a number of essays which reflect on the connection of boredom and modernity and focus on particular texts, authors, or aspects of the phenomenon. The approach is multidisciplinary, in keeping with the pervasiveness of the phenomenon in our culture and societies, with essays reflecting on philosophy, literature, film, media and psychology.

Table of Contents

Preliminary material / Editors Essays on Boredom and Modernity -- INTRODUCTION / Barbara Dalle Pezze and Carlo Salzani -- From Idleness to Boredom: On the Historical Development of Modern Boredom / Isis I. Leslie -- Kierkegaard’s Demonic Boredom / William McDonald -- Metaphysics and the Mood of Deep Boredom: Heidegger’s Phenomenology of Mood / Matthew Boss -- Beckett’s Boredom / James Phillips -- The Atrophy of Experience: Walter Benjamin and Boredom / Carlo Salzani -- The Quick and the Flat: Walter Benjamin, Werner Herzog / Rachel June Torbett -- The Digital Void: e-NNUI and experience / Marco van Leeuwen -- The Devil Inside: Boredom Proneness and Impulsive Behaviour / Joseph Boden -- CONTRIBUTORS / Editors Essays on Boredom and Modernity.